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FROM  BERLIN  TO 
BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 


BOOKS  BY  J.  A.  ZAHM 

(H.  J.  MOZANS) 

FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

THE  QUEST  OF  EL  DORADO 
THROUGH  SOUTH  AMERICA'S  SOUTHLAND 

UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE 

MAGDALENA 

ALONG  THE   ANDES    AND   DOWN   THE 
AMAZON 

WOMAN  IN    SaENCE 

GREAT  INSPIRERS 

199  C 


FROM  BERLIN  TO 
BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 


BY 

THEREV.J.A.ZAHM,C.S.C.,Ph.D.,LL.D. 

(h.  j.  mozans) 

MEMBER  or  THE  AUTHOKS'  CLUB,  LA  SOClfexi  FRAN?AISE  DE  PHYSIQUE,  THE  ARCADIA  OF  ROME, 
AND  OTHER  LEARNED  SOCIETIES;  AUTHOR  OF  "UP  THE  ORINOCO  AND  DOWN  THE  MACDALENA," 
"along  THE  ANDES  AND  DOWN  THE  AMAZON,"    "THROUGH    SOUTH   AMERICA'S  SOUTHLAND,"  BTC 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    :  :   LONDON    :  :    MCMXXII 


COPYRIGHT,   1922,  BY 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


miTTEO  IW  TH«  UNITED  STATES  OF  AHEKICA 


TO 

THE  BEST  OF  FRIENDS 
EVER  LOYAL  AND  INSPIRING 

MR.  AND  MRS.  CHARLES  M.  SCHWAB 

IN  WHOSE  HOSPITABLE  HOME  EVERY  BOOK  I 
HAVE  WRITTEN  DURING  THE  LAST  QUARTER 
OF  A  CENTURY  HAS  HAD  EITHER  ITS  IN- 
CEPTION OR  ITS  COMPLETION  THIS  VOLUME 

IS  AFFECTIONATELY  DEDICATED 


PARAPHRASE  OF  VERSES  FROM  SHAIKH  SADI 
By  Edwin  Aenold 

In  many  lands  1  have  wandered,  and 
wondered,  and  listened,  and  seen; 

And  many  my  friends  and  companions, 
and  teachers  and  lovers  have  been. 

And  nowhere  a  corner  was  there  hut  I 

gathered  up  pleasure  and  gain; 
From  a  hundred  gardens  the  rose-blooms, 

from  a  thousand  granaries  grain; 

And  I  said  to  my  soul  in  secret,  "Oh 
thou,  who  from  journeys  art  come! 

It  is  meet  we  should  bear  some  token  of 
love  to  the  stayers  at  home; 

For  where  is  the  traveller  brings  not  from 

Nile  the  sweet  green  reed. 
Or  Kashmiri  silk,  or  musk-bags,  or  coral, 

or  cardamum  seed?" 

I  was  loath  from  all  that  Pleasaunce  of 
the  Sun  and  his  words  and  ways. 

To  come  to  my  country  giftless,  and  show- 
ing no  fruit  of  my  days: 

But,  if  my  hands  were  empty  of  honey, 

and  pearls  and  gold, 
There  were  treasures  far  sweeter  than 

honey,  and  marvellous  things  to  be  told. 

Whiter  than  pearls  and  brighter  than  ^ 

the  cups  at  a  Sultan's  feast. 
And  these  I  have  brought  for  love-tokens, 

from  the  Lords  of  Truth,  in  my  East, 


FOREWORD 

The  following  pages  are  the  result  of  observations  made 
and  impressions  received  during  a  recent  journey  between 
one  of  the  greatest  capitals  of  Europe  and  the  crumbling 
remains  of  what  was  in  the  long-ago  the  greatest  capital  of 
Asia.  The  route  I  followed  was  that  which  has  been  ren- 
dered famous  by  the  migrations  of  the  nations  from  the 
East  to  the  West  and  by  the  march  of  armies  from  the  days 
of  Asurbanipal,  Darius  and  Alexander  to  those  of  Harun- 
al-Rashid,  Godefroy  de  Bouillon  and  Kolmar  von  der  Goltz. 

The  journey  in  question  I  made  not  as  a  tourist  but  as  a 
student — as  one  interested  not  only  in  the  present  condition 
— social,  economic,  religious  and  intellectual — of  the  peoples 
of  the  countries  through  which  I  passed,  and  as  one  who 
had  had  an  intense  and  lifelong  interest  in  the  history  and 
civilization  of  the  lands  which  intervene  between  the  head- 
waters of  the  Danube  and  the  lower  reaches  of  the  Tigris 
and  the  Euphrates. 

The  ordinary  tourist  on  pleasure  bent  would  regard  most 
of  my  journey  as  having  been  made  through  what  is  usually 
spoken  of  as  *  *  the  unchangeable  East. ' '  But  to  the  student 
who  is  conversant  with  the  long  and  eventful  past  of  the 
Near  East  the  storied  belt  which  connects  the  Bosphorus 
with  the  Persian  Gulf  has  been  the  theater  of  more  and 
greater  changes  in  humanity's  development  than  any  other 
portion  of  the  earth 's  surface.  It  is  the  fons  et  origo  of  the 
oldest  civilization — a  civilization  whose  traditions  carry 
us  back  to  the  Garden  of  Eden.  It  has  witnessed  the 
successive  civilizations  of  the  Babylonians  and  the  Assy- 
rians, of  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans  and  of  the  Saracens 
under  the  caliphs.  And  each  of  these  consecutive  civiliza- 
tions has  left  its  monuments  of  imperial  splendor — its  tem- 
ples and  palaces  and  colonnades  and  its  priceless  gems  of 


X  FOREWORD 

plastic  art.  Some  of  these  magnificent  vestiges  of  a  glorious 
past,  like  those  of  Palmyra,  are  still  standing  in  the  heart  of 
the  desert  and  have  long  since  been  abandoned  to  the  roving 
Bedouin  or  the  rapacious  jackal.  Others,  like  those  of 
Ephesus  and  Pergamum  and  Nineveh,  were  long  buried 
under  sand  and  clay  and  have  only  recently  been  unearthed 
by  the  pick  and  the  spade  of  the  explorer  and  the  archaeolo- 
gist. But  wherever  found,  whether  on  the  lonely  plains 
and  hillsides  of  Anatolia,  or  in  the  solitudes  of  the  Syrian 
and  Mesopotamian  deserts,  they  possess  for  the  studious 
traveler  an  attraction  that  is  not  offered  in  the  same  degree 
by  any  other  section  of  the  wide  world. 

Unlike  the  mysterious  ruins  in  the  steaming  jungles  of 
Yucatan  or  on  the  chilly  plateau  of  Bolivia,  which  speak 
of  an  enigmatic  race  quite  alien  to  our  own,  the  remains  of 
antiquity  everywhere  found  in  the  lands  between  Stamboul 
and  Babylon  are  of  forms  and  designs  with  which  we  have 
been  familiar  from  our  youth  and  which  belong  to  the  same 
civilization  from  which  our  own  is  derived — the  civilization 
that  had  its  origin  in  the  city-states  of  ancient  Greece  and 
that  was  subsequently  introduced  into  western  Asia  by  the 
soldiers  of  Alexander  and  Seleucus  and  firmly  maintained 
there  for  centuries  by  the  legionaries  of  imperial  Rome. 

To  the  student  traveling  through  the  Near  East — espe- 
cially along  the  route  which  I  selected — the  experience  is, 
in  many  respects,  like  that  of  one  passing  through  a  vast 
museum.  At  every  turn  he  meets  something  of  rare  and 
enthralling  fascination.  Now  it  is  a  remnant  of  a  marble 
capital  or  architrave  in  a  nomad 's  hut ;  then  it  is  a  forlorn 
granite  column  near  a  squalid  Turkish  village — all  that 
remains  of  some  stately  temple  or  sumptuous  theater  of 
Greek  or  Roman  greatness.  Again  it  is  the  fragment  of  a 
tomb  which  was  erected  to  the  memory  of  one  who  played 
an  important  role  in  his  day,  but  whose  name  and  achieve- 
ments have  long  since  been  forgotten.  And  hovering  over 
these  crumbling  monuments  of  a  misty  past  are  legends 
innumerable,   but   all   of   entrancing  human  interest — an 


FOREWORD  xi 

interest  that  is  accentuated  by  the  discovery  of  a  Greek  or 
Latin  inscription  carved  in  a  slab  of  granite  or  marble  or 
by  the  finding  of  a  terra  cotta  tablet  covered  with  cuneiform 
characters  that  carry  one  back  to  the  stirring  reigns  of 
Esarhaddon  or  Sennacherib. 

And  then  there  are  the  people — especially  those  of  Asia 
Minor — with  whom  the  author  always  loved  to  mingle  and 
of  whose  kindness  and  hospitality  he  will  ever  retain  the 
fondest  memories.  No  people  that  I  know  has  been  less 
understood  and  more  misrepresented  than  the  gentle,  indus- 
trious, home-loving  Osmanlis  of  Anatolia.  But  of  these  I 
shall  speak  at  length  when  relating  my  experiences  in  Asia 
Minor. 

Traveling  as  a  student,  I  have  also  written  as  a  student 
and  for  students.  But  I  have  at  the  same  time  endeavored 
to  record  my  observations  and  impressions  so  as  to  make 
them  of  interest  to  the  general  reader  as  well.  And  while  I 
have  given  prominence  to  subjects  that  specially  appealed 
to  myself,  these  will,  I  trust,  not  be  devoid  of  value  to  others 
who  may  wish  to  have  in  popular  form  an  account  of  some 
of  the  most  famous  cities  and  peoples  of  the  Near  East  when 
civilization  was  in  its  infancy,  or  when  it  was  in  full  bloom 
under  the  beneficent  influence  of  Helenism  and  Christianity. 

As  many  parts  of  this  volume  are  controversial  in  char- 
acter, I  have  not  confined  myself  to  giving  simply  the 
results  of  my  own  observations  and  impressions,  but  I  have 
taken  pains  to  corroborate  them  by  the  conclusions  of 
eminent  scholars  and  investigators  who  have  devoted  to  all 
the  more  important  subjects  long  and  careful  study,  and 
whose  opinions,  therefore,  are  entitled  to  special  weight. 
And  that  the  reader,  if  so  minded,  may  be  able  to  control 
my  statements  and  deductions  I  have  invariably  given 
references  to  my  authorities. 

In  the  matter  of  the  orthography  of  Turkish  and  Arabic 
proper  names  I  have  had  the  same  experience  as  Howorth 
refers  to  when  he  writes  in  his  History  of  the  Mongols: 
'  *  There  are  hardly  two  authors  whom  1  have  consulted  who 


xii  FOREWORD 

spell  the  names  in  the  same  way,  and  very  often  their 
spelling  is  so  different  that  it  is  nearly  impossible  to  recog- 
nize the  name  under  its  various  aspects. "  This  arises  from 
the  fact  that  there  is  as  yet  no  generally  accepted  system 
among  English  scholars  for  the  transliteration  of  Turkish 
and  Arabic  names.  Scientific  accuracy,  therefore,  is  in  this 
respect  difficult,  if  not  impossible.  My  sole  aim,  conse- 
quently, has  been  to  make  myself  intelligible.  I  have, 
accordingly,  followed  the  orthography  adopted  by  our 
standard  English  dictionaries  and  encyclopedias.  In  doing 
this  I  have,  I  am  aware,  exposed  myself  to  the  criticism  of 
Oriental  philologists,  but  I  shall,  I  trust,  have  compensation 
in  the  satisfaction  of  being  '' under standed  of  the  people." 

Immebqrun,  Lorreto,  Pa. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGF 

I.    On  the  Beautiful  Blue  Danube 1 

II.   The  Euxine  and  the  Bosphorus  in  Story,  Myth 

AND  Legend 35 

III.  Roma  Nova     ............  51 

IV.  The  Hellespont  and  Homer's  Troy     .     .     ...     ..  76 

V.   The  Cradle  of  the  Osmanlis 94 

VI.   Home  Life  of  the  Osmanlis  in  Anatolia    .,     .     .  121 

VII.   The  Bagdad  Railway 151 

VIII.    In  the  Footsteps  c?  the  Crusaders  ......  171 

IX.    In  Historic  Cilicia  Campestris       ....     .  193 

X.   Islam  Past  and  Present 220 

XI.   Along  the  Trade  Routes  of  the  N^r  East     .     .  253 

XII.   From  the  Euphrates  to  the  Tigris     ....  278 

XIII.  The  Churches  of  the  East 303 

XIV.  Nineveh  and  Its  Wonders 341 

XV.   Floating  Down  the  Tigris  in  a  Kelek     .     .     .  370 

XVI.    Bagdad 402 

XVII.   Motoring  in  the  Garden  of  Eden 437 

XVIII.    Babylon 471 

Index  .     .     .,     .,    ,.,    ,.,...     ,.,    ,.,     .     .     .  517 


XUI 


FROM  BERLIN  TO 
BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

CHAPTER  I 
ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE 

Wenn  ich  dann  zu  Nacht  alleine 
Dichtend  in  die  Wellen  schau', 
8t eight  beim  blanken  Mondenscheine 
Auf  die  schmucke  Wasserfrau 
Ails  der  Danau, 

Aus  der  schonen,  hlauen  Danau} 

Beck 

From  Ratisbon  to  Budapest 

Berlin  to  Bagdad!  How  these  words,  during  the  past 
few  years,  have  stirred  the  chancelleries  of  Europe  and  how 
they  have  echoed  and  reechoed  throughout  the  civilized 
world  I  How  they  evoke  Macchiavellian  schemes  of  rival 
powers  for  territorial  expansion  and  recall  prolonged 
diplomatic  struggles  and  countless  sanguinary  battles  for 
military  and  commercial  supremacy!  How  they  tell  of  a 
welter  of  intrigue,  of  ambitions  foiled,  of  treaties  violated, 
of  nations  plunged  into  the  miseries  and  horrors  of  the 
most  frightful  and  most  destructive  of  wars  I 

No  portion  of  the  world's  surface  in  the  entire  history 
of  humanity  has  witnessed  so  many  and  so  great  revolu- 
tions as  has  that  narrow  strip  which  connects  what  was 
once  the  palm-embowered  capital  of  Harun-al-Rashid,  near 

1  When  in  meditation  during  the  solitary  night,  I  contemplate  the  waves, 
there  arises  in  the  bright  moonlight  the  pretty  water  nymph  from  the  Danube, 
from  the  beautiful  blue  Danube. 

1 


2   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

the  reputed  birthplace  of  our  race,  with  the  once  proud 
metropolis  of  the  Hohenzollerns  in  far  distant  Niflheim. 
Across  this  restricted  belt  have  swept  Babylonians  and 
Assyrians,  Persians  and  Greeks,  Saracens  and  Mongols  in 
their  careers  of  rapine  and  conquest.  And  across  it  surged 
the  countless  hordes  of  Huns  and  Goths,  Turks  and  Tartars, 
during  that  protracted  migration  of  nations  from  the  arid 
steppes  of  Asia  to  the  fertile  plains  of  Europe.  And  across 
it,  too,  at  the  head  of  their  victorious  armies,  forced  their 
way  all  projectors  of  world  domination  from  Ashurbanipal 
and  Alexander  to  Timur  and  Napoleon. 

As  a  boy  no  part  of  the  world  possessed  a  greater  fascina- 
tion for  me  than  Babylonia  and  Assyria.  This  was,  prob- 
ably, because  the  first  book  I  ever  read  contained  wonderful 
stories  of  the  Garden  of  Eden ;  of  Babylon  and  its  marvel- 
ous hanging  gardens ;  of  Nineveh  and  its  magnificent  tem- 
ples and  palaces;  of  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates  whose 
waters  were  made  to  irrigate  the  vast  and  fecund  plain  of 
Mesopotamia,  the  cradle  of  civilization.  So  profound,  in- 
deed, was  the  impression  made  on  me  by  the  reading  of 
this  volume  that  one  of  the  great  desires  of  my  life  was 
one  day  to  be  able  to  visit  the  land  whose  history  had  so 
fascinated  my  youthful  mind  and  whose  people  had  played 
so  conspicuous  a  role  in  the  drama  of  human  progress. 

After  many  years,  when  the  realization  of  my  dreams 
seemed  no  longer  possible,  events  so  shaped  themselves  that 
I  finally  found  myself,  almost  as  if  by  enchantment,  in  a 
comfortable  hotel  on  the  famous  Unter  den  Linden  in 
Berlin  making  final  arrangements  for  my  long  journey  to 

Romantic  Bagdad,  name  to  childhood  dear. 
Where  the  sorcerer  gloomed,  the  genii  dwelt, 
And  Love  and  Worth  to  good  Al  Bashid  knelt. 

HacJ  I  been  in  haste  and  been  disposed  to  follow  the 
most  direct  route,  I  should  have  taken  the  Orient  Express 
which  would  have  delivered  me  forty-nine  hours  later  in 
the  famed  City  of  Constantine  on  the  picturesque  Bos- 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE     3 

phorus.  But  that  would  have  been  too  prosaic  and  would 
have  prevented  me  from  feasting  my  eyes  on  many  things 
which,  during  previous  visits  to  Europe  had  given  me  spe- 
cial pleasure. 

Chief  among  these  was  that  supreme  performance  of 
pictorial  art,  Raphael's  Madonna  of  San  Sisto  in  the  Royal 
Art  Gallery  of  Dresden.  Although  I  had  many  times  spent 
hours  in  silent  contemplation  of  this  masterpiece  of  the 
great  Umbrian  artist,  I  now  felt  a  greater  desire  than  ever 
to  behold  again  this  matchless  creation  of  genius  and  feel 
myself  again  under  the  spell  of  its  serene  beauty  and  gaze 
once  more  on  what  has  been  called  ''the  supernatural  put 
into  color  and  form" — "Christianity  in  miniature" — ^what 
Goethe  sings  of  as 

Model  for  mothers — queen  of  woman — 
A  magic  brush  has,  hy  enchantment. 
Fixed  her  there. 

Could  one  have  had  before  one 's  mind  during  long  months 
in  many  lands  a  more  elevating  or  a  more  inspiring  image 
than  that  of  her  whom  Wordsworth  has  so  truly  character- 
ized as 

Our  tainted  nature's  solitary  boast f 

From  Dresden  I  went  to  Ratisbon  which,  according  to  a 
venerable  tradition,  occupies  the  site  of  a  town  founded  by 
the  Celts  long  centuries  before  the  Christian  era  and  which 
subsequently  became  known  as  Castra  Regina,  an  outpost 
of  the  Roman  empire  on  its  long  northern  frontier.  In 
few  places  of  Germany  is  there  more  to  engage  the  lovers 
of  historic  and  legendary  lore  than  this  ancient  city. 

The  most  conspicuous  object  is  the  noble  Gothic  Cathedral 
with  its  delicate  crocketed  spires.  As  in  the  case  of  the 
cathedral  of  Cologne,  full  six  centuries  elapsed  from  the 
laying  of  the  cornerstone  to  the  completion  of  the  towers 
of  this  imposing  building.  And  as  in  the  marvelous  church 
of  the  Certosa  di  Pavia  the  architectural  and  artistic  deco- 


4    FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

ration  of  this  magnificent  temple  passed  from  father  to  son. 
To  these  rarely  gifted  artisans  and  designers  one  can  apply 
the  words  of  Longfellow  about  the  Cathedral  of  Strassburg : 

The  Architect 
Built  his  great  heart  into  these  sculptured  stones, 
And  with  him  toiled  his  children,  and  their  lives 
Were  huilded  with  his  own  into  the  walls 
As  offerings  to  God. 

The  numerous  square  towers  which  are  visible  in  cer- 
tain parts  of  the  city  remind  one  of  similar  towers  that  are 
so  marked  a  feature  in  San  Gimignano.  They  date  back  to 
a  time  when  the  nobility  of  Ratisbon,  like  the  noble  families 
of  Florence  in  Dante's  time,  employed  them  as  defenses 
against  their  enemies. 

But  it  is  not  my  intention  to  describe  even  briefly  the 
countless  objects  which  have  so  long  rendered  this  famous 
old  city  a  favorite  object  to  the  tourist.  To  do  even  partial 
justice  to  its  multitudinous  attractions  and  historical  asso- 
ciations would  require  a  large  volume. 

My  purpose  in  coming  to  Ratisbon  was  to  embark  on  one 
of  the  small  boats  that  here  ply  on  the  Danube,  with  the 
view  of  connecting  at  Passau,  further  down  the  river,  with 
one  of  the  larger  boats  of  the  Danube  Steamship  Naviga- 
tion Company,  which  would  take  me  to  Vienna.  Thence  I 
planned  to  go  by  steamers  of  the  same  company  to  Buda- 
pest, Belgrade  and  the  mouth  of  the  Danube,  whence  I  had 
planned  to  sail  by  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Bosphorus  to 
Constantinople. 

But  why,  the  reader  will  ask,  did  I  elect  the  slower  and 
more  roundabout  route  rather  than  the  direct  one  by  rail? 
I  answer  in  the  words  of  Ovid : 

Ignoiis  errare  locis,  ignota  videre 

Flumina  gaudetant,  studio  minuente  laborem? 

1  had  always  loved  the  water  and  traveling  by  river  has 

2  He  loved  to  wander  over  unknown  places  and  to  see  unknown  rivers, 
his  curiosity  lessening  the  fatigue. 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE    5 

always  had  a  peculiar  fascination  for  me.  Besides  this,  I 
had  for  years  been  specially  eager  to  journey  by  the  Danube 
from  its  source  to  its  mouth.  Having  had  the  good  fortune 
to  sail  the  entire  navigable  length  of  many  of  the  world's 
largest  rivers,  I  was  doubly  desirous  of  sailing  down  the 
historic  waterway  which  connects  the  noted  Black  Forest 
with  the  famed  Euxine  Sea  of  antiquity. 

In  one  of  his  charming  travel-books,  Victor  Hugo 
declares : 

The  Rhine  is  unique:  it  combines  the  quality  of  every 
river.  Like  the  Rhone,  it  is  rapid;  broad,  like  the  Loire; 
encased  like  the  Meuse;  serpentine  like  the  Seine;  limpid 
and  green  like  the  Somme ;  mysterious  like  the  Nile ;  span- 
gled with  gold,  like  an  American  river;  and,  like  a  river 
of  Asia,  abounding  with  phantoms  and  fables.^ 

Hesiod,  who  first  makes  mention  of  the  Danube,  under 
the  name  of  the  Ister,  gives  it  the  epithet  of  KaAAipeeSpoc 
— the  beautifully  flowing — and  calls  it  the  son  of  Tethys 
and  Oceanus.  Ovid  was  so  impressed  with  it  that  he 
declares  in  one  of  his  Paitic  Epistles,  that  it  is  not  inferior 
to  the  Nile: 

Cedere  Danuhius  se  tibi,  Nile,  negat* 

Hugo's  brief  but  graphic  description  of  some  of  the 
world's  famed  rivers  applies  with  even  greater  truth  to 
the  legendary,  the  historic,  the  romantic,  the  picturesque 
Danube.  No  watercourse  in  the  world  is  tenanted  by  a 
larger  number  of  fantastic  and  mysterious  beings;  some, 
like  the  swan-maidens  and  the  water  nymph  Isa,  making 
their  home  in  its  waters ;  others,  like  fairies  and  pixies  and 
elves,  dwelling  in  the  bays,  forests,  caverns  and  old  dis- 
mantled castles  on  its  banks. 

According  to  Pindar,  the  region  about  the  source  of  the 

sLe  Rhin,  Letter  XIV. 

*Ovid,  Metamorphoses,  IV,  294,  296. 


6    FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Danube  was  a  land  of  perpetual  sunshine  and  teeming  with 
the  choicest  fruits.  It  was  inhabited  by  a  people  who 
enjoyed  undisturbed  peace,  were  immune  from  disease  and 
lived  a  thousand  years,  which  they  spent  in  the  worship  of 
Apollo.  It  was  from  this  highly  favored  land,  Pindar  tells 
us,  that  Hercules  brought  the  olive  which,  it  was  averred, 
grew  in  profusion  about  the  sources  of  the  Danube.^ 

And,  from  its  headwaters  to  its  entrance  into  the  Euxine, 
the  Danube  was  as  rich  in  myths  and  legends  as  were 
ever  the  rivers  and  mountains  and  groves  of  ancient  Hellas. 
According  to  the  great  German  epic,  the  Nibelungenlied,  it 
was  at  Pforring,  a  short  distance  above  Ratisbon,  that  the 
legendary  heroine,  Kriemhild,  bride-elect  of  Etzel,  took 
leave  of  her  brothers  when  on  her  way  from  the  Rhine  to 
far-off  Hungary,  where  she  was  to  join  her  new  husband, 
the  famous  Etzel — Attila — ^king  of  the  Huns,  and  where  she 
was  to  consummate  her  plans  of  wreaking  vengeance  upon 
the  murderers  of  her  first  husband,  Siegfried. 

It  may  here  be  remarked  in  passing  that  the  illustrious 
Albertus  Magnus,  probably  the  greatest  scholar  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  reputed  to  be  a  magician  as  well  as  an 
eminent  theologian  and  philosopher,  was  bishop  of  Ratisbon. 

About  a  half  hour  after  leaving  Ratisbon,  in  a  cosy  little 
steamer,  we  find  ourselves  near  the  foot  of  a  wooded  hill  on 
whose  brow 

The  Walhalla  rises,  purely  white, 
Temple  of  fame  for  all  Germania*s  great. 

Seen  at  a  distance  it  appears  to  be  almost  a  reproduction 
of  the  Parthenon,  both  in  dimensions  and  style  of  architec- 
ture. It  is  due  to  the  munificence  of  Ludwig  I,  of  Bavaria, 
who  erected  it  as  a  Temple  of  Fame  for  those  who  had  in 
any  way  signally  honored  the  Fatherland.  Some  even, 
whose  names  are  unknown,  are  duly  commemorated  in  this 
magnificent  edifice.    Among  them  are  the  architect  of  the 

6  01.,  Ill,  13-15, 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE    7 

Cologne  Cathedral  and  the  author  of  the  great  German 
epic,  the  Nibelungenlied. 

"When  this  temple  was  solemnly  dedicated  in  October, 
1842,  Ludwig  I,  in  the  course  of  a  stirring  address,  said, 
"May  the  Walhalla  contribute  to  extend  and  consolidate 
the  feelings  of  German  nationality.  May  all  Germans  of 
every  race  henceforth  feel  they  have  a  common  country 
of  which  they  may  be  proud,  and  let  each  individual  labor 
according  to  his  faculties  to  promote  its  glory. "  It  is  the 
use  of  the  word  ''German"  in  its  broad  historic  and  ethno- 
logical sense  that  explains  the  existence,  in  this  Teutonic 
Hall  of  Fame,  of  tablets  in  honor  of  Hengist  and  Horsa, 
Venerable  Bede  and  Alfred  the  Great. 

From  Walhalla  to  Passau,  near  the  Austrian  frontier,  we 
had  a  splendid  opportunity,  as  our  little  steamer  glided 
along  the  sinuous  Danube,  to  observe  the  attractions  of  the 
celebrated  Dunkelboden,  so  called  from  its  dark,  fertile  soil. 
Much  of  the  country  through  which  we  passed  was  a  broad, 
unbroken  plain,  dotted  with  small  farmhouses,  pretty  vil- 
lages adorned  with  chaletlike  homes,  and  white  churches 
surmounted  by  quaint,  salmon-colored  steeples. 

Arrived  at  Passau  I  embarked  for  Vienna  on  one  of  the 
trim  and  commodious  steamers  of  the  Danube  Steamship 
Navigation  Company.  The  appointments  and  service  of 
these  boats  are  all  that  could  be  desired  and  are  fully  equal 
to  the  best  of  the  excursion  steamers  on  the  Hudson  or  the 
St.  Lawrence.  Indeed,  for  one  who  desires  perfect  rest, 
combined  with  comfort,  while  sailing  on  the  most  romantic 
and  picturesque  waterway  in  Europe,  I  know  of  nothing 
I  can  more  cordially  recommend  than  a  few  weeks '  excur- 
sion on  the  Danube. 

From  time  immemorial  travelers  have  sounded  the 
glories  of  the  Ehine.  I  should  be  the  last  to  depreciate 
the  many  and  great  attractions  of  this  noble  river  on  which 
I  spent  so  many  happy  days,  but  truth  compels  me  to 
declare  that  the  Danube,  not  only  in  scenic  beauty  and 
grandeur,  but  also  in  historic  and  legendary  association, 


8    FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

far  surpasses  what  the  Romans  were  wont  to  call  Rhenus 
Superbus. 

On  the  way  from  Passau  to  Vienna  I  spent  all  my  time  on 
deck,  as  I  did  not  wish  to  miss  any  of  the  countless  objects 
of  interest  which  here  make  the  course  of  the  Danube  so 
famous.  What  with  historic  towns  and  villages,  crenelated 
and  machicolated  castles — some  still  inhabited,  others  long 
since  in  ruins — there  was  much  to  engage  one 's  attention. 

If  the  massive  walls  and  somber  towers  of  these  moss- 
covered  old  castles  could  speak,  what  tales  could  they  not 
tell  of  love  and  romance,  hate  and  revenge  ?  What  stories 
could  they  not  tell  of  wars  and  sieges  when  the  crossbow, 
halberd  and  the  broadsword  were  the  chief  weapons  of 
offense  and  defense?  And  how  much  would  they  not  have 
to  relate  of  the  lawlessness  and  cruelty  of  the  robber-barons 
who  sallied  forth  from  these  almost  inaccessible  strong- 
holds to  confiscate  passing  vessels  or  to  pillage  the  sur- 
rounding country.  Manzoni,  in  his  vivid  pictures  of  the 
prepotenti,  as  portrayed  in  his  masterly  I  Promessi  Sposi, 
gives  one  some  idea  of  the  insatiable  rapacity  of  the 
titled  brigands  of  the  period  which  we  are  now  consider- 
ing. Good  old  Froissart  was  right  when  he  denounced  them 
as  ''people  worse  than  Saracens  or  Paynims'';  as  men 
whose  ''excessive  covetousness  quencheth  the  knowledge  of 
honor." 

Everywhere  along  the  Danube  one  hears  stories  about 
the  activities  of  the  Devil  in  days  gone  by  and  of  his  deter- 
mined efforts  to  thwart  the  works  and  projects  of  those 
whom  he  regarded  as  his  natural  enemies.  In  Ratisbon  is 
shown  a  bridge  which  he  is  said  to  have  built  in  exchange 
for  the  soul  of  his  employer.  Owing,  however,  to  the  supe- 
rior shrewdness  of  his  employer,  he  lost  the  remuneration 
he  so  greatly  coveted. 

Further  down  the  river,  near  Deggendorf ,  is  a  great  mass 
of  granite  which  the  Devil  is  said  to  have  brought  all  the 
way  from  Italy  in  order  to  destroy  the  town,  because  its 
people  were  too  religious  to  please  his  Satanic  Majesty. 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE     9 

But  just  as  he  was  about  to  drop  his  massive  load  on  the 
unsuspecting  inhabitants,  the  Ave  Maria  bell  was  sounded 
in  the  adjacent  monastery  when  the  Evil  One  was  forced 
to  let  fall  his  burden  before  he  could  compass  his  purpose. 
At  another  point  is  shown  a  rock  known  as  the  Devil's 
Tower,  and  at  still  another  is  a  curious  mass  of  rock  which, 
from  its  peculiar  formation,  is  called  Teufelsmauer — 
Devil's  Wall. 

According  to  a  time-honored  ballad 

There  came  an  old  Crusader 
With  fifty  harnessed  men 
And  he  embarked  at  Ratision 
To  fight  the  Saracen. 

These  Crusaders  and  others  that  followed  them  down  the 
Danube  on  their  way  to  the  Holy  Land  so  exasperated 
the  Demon  that  **he  plucked  up  rocks  from  the  neighboring 
cliffs  and  pitched  them  right  into  the  channel  of  the  river, 
thereby  hoping  to  arrest  their  progress.  But  in  this  he  was 
completely  deceived ;  for  after  the  first  rock  came  plunging 
down  amongst  them,  every  man  made  the  sign  of  the  cross, 
and  uniting  their  voices  in  a  holy  anthem,  the  fiend  was 
instantly  paralyzed,  and  slunk  away  without  further  resist- 
ance. So  huge,  however,  was  the  first  stone  he  threw  that 
for  ages  it  caused  a  swirl  and  a  swell  in  this  part  of  the 
river  which  nothing  but  the  skill  and  perseverance  of 
the  Bavarian  engineers  could  remove."  ^ 

As  the  Danube  moves  majestically  between  ever  recur- 
ring islets,  green  with  willow  and  birch,  and  wooded  heights 
crowned  with  ruins  of  castles  and  monasteries  telling  of 
times  long  past,  the  veil  of  romance,  with  which  legend 
invests  everything,  seems  to  become  heavier  and  more 
variegated.  Here  are  elf -haunted  glens  and  primeval  for- 
ests which  were  once  declared  to  be  the  home  of  the  Erl- 
King.  There  is  the  dark  cavern  where  the  lindwurm,  like 
the  one  slain  by  Siegfried,  lay  in  wait  for  his  prey,  and  at 

•TAe  Danube,  p.  71   (by  W.  Beattie,  London,  1843). 


10   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

still  another  spot  is  the  lakelet  where  Hagen  met  the  swan- 
maidens  on  his  return  with  the  Nibelungs  to  the  lands  of 
the  Huns.  Further  down  the  stream  are  the  Strudel  and 
Wirbel,  the  Scylla  and  Charybdis  of  the  Danube,  for  ages 
the  reputed  trysting-place  of  all  kinds  of  phantoms  and 
monsters. 
But  here  in 

Imperial  Danube^ s  rich  domain 

sober  history  has  far  more  to  recount  than  saga  and  legend, 
for  every  spot  we  pass  has  its  story  of  ambition,  intrigue 
and  revenge ;  of  wars  involving  the  loss  of  thrones  and  far- 
reaching  changes  in  the  map  of  the  then  known  world. 

At  Diirrenstein,  further  down  the  river,  are  the  ruins  of 
a  great  feudal  stronghold  in  which  is  still  shown  the  dun- 
geon in  which  tradition  says  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion,  on  his 
return  from  the  Third  Crusade,  was  imprisoned  by  his  in- 
exorable enemy,  Duke  Leopold  of  Austria.  The  legend, 
telling  how  the  English  King's  liberation  was  finally 
effected  through  his  devoted  minstrel,  Blondel,  has  long 
been  a  favorite  theme  of  poets  and  artists.^ 

It  was  not  far  from  Diirrenstein  that  Julian  the  Apostate 
engaged  a  flotilla  for  his  famous  voyage  down  the  Danube — 
the  beginning  of  that  long  campaign  which  was  to  end  so 
disastrously  for  him  and  his  army  on  the  sun-parched  banks 
of  the  far  distant  Tigris. 

At  a  subsequent  period  Charlemagne  and  his  Paladins 
descended  the  Danube  on  his  campaign  against  the  Avars. 
Later  on  he  was  followed  by  numerous  contingents  of  Cru- 
saders, among  them  heroic  Barbarossa  and  his  valiant  band, 
on  their  way  to  Constantinople  and  the  Holy  Land. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  no  waterway  in  Europe  has  more 
frequently  witnessed  the  march  of  vast  armies  or  heard 
more  frequently  the  echoed  roll  of  battle  than  has  the 
broadly  sweeping  Danube.    In  its  wide  and  fertile  valley 

7  Cf.  A  History  of  the  Life  of  Riohard  Coeur  de  Lion,  King  of  England, 
Vol.  II,  p.  419  (by  G.  P.  James,  London,  1854). 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE    11 

have  met  in  deadly  conflict  the  well-trained  legions  of  a 
Prince  Eugene  of  Savoy,  a  Gustavus  Adolphus,  a  Marl- 
borough, a  Bonaparte,  and  on  the  issue  of  the  battles  in 
which  they  were  engaged  were  decided  the  fate  of  nations 
and  the  course  of  civilization. 

Augustus,  it  was,  who  made  the  Danube  the  northern 
boundary  of  the  Eoman  Empire.  It  extended  like  a  broad 
and  impassable  moat  from  the  Schwartzwald  to  the  Euxine, 
and,  like  the  Rhine  on  the  East  of  Gaul,  served  to  keep  the 
barbarians  of  the  north  confined  within  their  primeval  for- 
ests. All  along  the  Danube  from  its  source  to  its  delta  are 
still  found  countless  traces  of  what  were  once  important 
military  outposts,  flourishing  towns  and  centers  of  advanc- 
ing civilization  and  culture. 

After  passing  through  the  picturesque  gorge  of  Wachau, 
famed  for  its  wild  scenery,  its  haunted  castles,  its  oak- 
covered  heights,  its  precipitous  crags  once  crowned  by 
massive  strongholds  which  were  tenanted  by  robber  knights 
who  were  long  the  terror  of  the  surrounding  country,  we 
enter  an  extensive  plain  which  the  branching  Danube  cuts 
into  a  number  of  willow  and  birch-covered  islands.  Soon, 
on  the  right,  we  reach  the  mouth  of  the  river  Traisen,  near 
whose  confluence  with  the  Danube  stands  Traisenmauer, 
noted  in  the  Nibelungenlied  as  being  the  home  of  Helka, 
Etzel's  first  queen,  and  the  last  stopping  place  of  Kriemhild 
before  her  arrival  at  Tulna,  where  the  King  of  the  Huns 
was  awaiting  her. 

The  progress  of  the  brilliant  cavalcade,  with  all  its  glit- 
tering pomp  and  pageantry,  composed  of 

Oood  knights  of  many  a  region  and  many  a  foreign  tongue, 

from  Tulna  to  Vienna  and  thence  to  the  capital  of  the  Huns, 
is  best  told  in  the  simple  words  of  the  Nibelungenlied : 

From  Tulna  to  Vienna  their  journey  then  they  made. 
There  found  they  many  a  lady  adorned  in  all  her  pride 
To  welcome  with  due  honor  King  Etzel's  noble  bride. 


12   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Held  was  the  marriage  festal  on  Whitsuntide 

*Twas  then  that  royal  Etzel  embraced  his  high-born  bride 

In  the  city  of  Vienna;  I  ween  she  ne'er  had  found 

When  first  she  wed,  such  myriads  all  to  her  service  bound. 


So  court  and  country  flourished  with  such  high  honors  crowned 
And  all  at  every  season  fresh  joy  and  pastime  found. 
Every  heart  was  merry,  smiles  on  each  face  were  seen; 
So  kind  the  King  was  ever,  so  liberal  the  Queen.^ 

Having  been  frequently  in  Vienna  before,  I  tarried  this 
time  hardly  long  enough  to  refresh  my  memory  regarding 
certain  things  and  places  that  always  had  a  peculiar  attrac- 
tion for  me.  Among  these  were  its  admirable  museums  and 
art  galleries,  its  delightful  drives  and  sumptuous  palaces. 
But  above  all  I  was  particularly  eager  to  revisit  the  impos- 
ing Cathedral  of  St.  Stephen,  for  it  is  not  only  one  of  the 
noblest  specimens  of  Gothic  architecture  in  Europe,  but  is 
also  one  of  the  most  beautiful  temples  of  Christian  worship 
in  existence.  Although  erected  in  the  twelfth  century,  it 
has  survived  all  the  sieges  to  which  Vienna  has  been  subject 
and  is  still,  after  seven  centuries,  the  most  conspicuous  of 
the  many  grandiose  structures  of  Austria 's  superb  capital. 
As  I  examined  the  exquisite  carvings  of  portal  and  window 
and  delicate  crocketed  spire  of  this  stupendous  fane  I  real- 
ized as  never  before  how  the  builders  of  the  Ages  of  Faith 
wrought  the  parts  unseen  by  men  with  the  same  care  as 
those  which  were  exposed  to  the  gaze  of  all.  For  they 
labored  for  God,  and  God  sees  everything  and  everywhere. 

And  then,  too,  I  desired  to  spend  an  hour  or  two  at  the 
Glorietta  of  Schonbrunn,  of  which,  from  a  previous  visit, 
I  had  retained  such  pleasant  memories.  From  this  enchant- 
ing spot  one  has  a  magnificent  panorama  of  the  city  and  the 
surrounding  country — ^the  theater  of  many  sieges  and  bat- 
tles in  which,  during  the  heyday  of  Ottoman  power,  the 
fate  of  Europe  seemed  to  tremble  in  the  balance. 

8  Adventure    XXII. 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE    13 

In  the  memorable  siege  of  1863,  the  walls  of  Vienna 
had  already  been  breached  by  the  thundering  guns  of 
the  Moslems,  whose  tents  in  countless  thousands  covered  the 
surrounding  plain,  and  only  a  miracle,  it  seemed,  could  save 
the  city  from  its  impending  doom.  Famine  and  death  and 
wan  despair  stalk  through  the  beleaguered  capital.  One  by 
one  the  soldiers  of  the  Cross  fall  from  the  fast  crumbling 
ramparts.  ^Everywhere  are  heard  the  groans  of  the  dying 
and  the  wild  laments  of  its  dismayed  and  enfeebled  inhabi- 
tants, who  are  no  longer  able  to  stem  the  resistless  onrush 
of  the  barbaric  host.  Mothers  press  their  infants  to  their 
bosoms  and  trembling  virgins,  sobbing  as  if  their  hearts 
would  break,  are  overwhelmed  with  dread  of  a  fate  worse 
than  death  itself. 

But,  behold !  The  advancing  columns  of  the  infidel  horde 
falter,  then  halt  suddenly  as  if  confronted  by  some  horror- 
inspiring  apparition,  or.  paralyzed  by  a  colossal  Medusa. 
What  appalls  proud  Mustapha's  haughty  warriors?  What 
panic  has  seized  his  swarthy  Janizaries  ? 

The  standards  of  John  Sobieski,  the  scourge  and  terror 
of  the  Moslems,  are  seen  floating  from  the  crest  of  Kahlen- 
berg.  Presently  the  hero-king,  at  the  head  of  his  resistless 
cuirassiers,  dashes  like  a  thunderbolt  against  the  enemy 
and  the  luckless  troops  of  the  grand  vizier  melt  like  a  mist 
before  the  morning  sun. 

Now  joy  was  in  proud  Vienna's  town; 
Brave  Star  enter  g  had  won  renown: 
The  sweet  Cathedral  hells  were  rung 
As  for  a  May-day  festival, 
And  Soiieski's  fame  was  sung 
Throughout  the  lordly  capital. 

The  Cross  had  again  triumphed  over  the  Crescent  and 
Christian  Europe  had  blasted  all  Moslem  hopes  of  further 
progress  up  the  Danube.  On  Vienna 's  ramparts  might  well 
be  inscribed  in  letters  of  gold : 


U   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Warring  against  the  Christian  Jove  in  vain, 
Here  was  the  Ottoman  Typhosus  slain. 

Some  twenty  odd  miles  east  of  Vienna,  near  Hainburg, 
are  extensive  ruins  supposed  to  be  remains  of  the  ancient 
Roman  town  of  Carnuntum.  The  place  is  interesting  from 
the  fact  that  Marcus  Aurelius  spent  three  years  here  during 
his  wars  with  the  Quadi  and  the  Marcomanni.  Here  also 
he  wrote  a  part  of  his  ''Meditations,"  which  have  contrib- 
uted more  to  perpetuate  his  name  than  all  his  achievements 
as  Roman  Emperor.  Here  Septimus  Severus  was  pro- 
claimed Emperor  by  his  soldiers  and  here,  too,  Rome  had 
a  station  for  a  part  of  its  Danube  flotilla.  And  the  empire 
had  need  of  many  flotillas  and  many  frontier  garrisons 
along  the  extended  Danube  to  keep  in  check  the  barbarians 
on  its  northern  banks,  when  the  prolific  North  poured  them 
forth 

From  her  frozen  loins  to  pass 
Bhene  or  the  Danaw,  when  her  harharous  sons 
Came  like  a  deluge  on  the  south  and  spread 
Beneath  Gibraltar  to  the  Libyan  sands. 

Augustus  and  his  immediate  successors  had  hoped  that 
this  broad  waterway  would  serve  as  an  impassable  barrier, 
but  subsequent  events  showed  that  they  were  mistaken. 
Neither  the  Danube,  nor  the  Rhine,  nor  the  Limes  Romanus 
— a  high  stone  wall  connecting  these  two  rivers — ^which  had 
been  constructed  by  the  Emperor  Probus,  nor  other  de- 
fenses of  the  empire,  which  had  been  developed  by  his 
successors,  were  adequate  to  prevent  the  ever  increasing 
incursions  of  the  barbarians  into  Roman  territory.  Among 
them,  besides  the  Marcomanni  and  the  Quadi,  whose  war- 
like activities  engaged  the  attention  of  Marcus  Aurelius 
during  his  stay  in  Carnuntum  and  Vindobona — Vienna — 
were  the  Suevi,  the  Gepidas,  the  Alemanni,  the  Vindelici,  the 
Heruli,  and  other  peoples  of  Celtic  and  Germanic  stock. 
These  were  followed  by  Slavs,  by  the  Avars,  the  Goths,  the 
Huns,  the  Alani,  the  Vandals,  the  Langobardi,  who  in  ever 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE    15 

increasing  numbers  crossed  the  Danube  and  laid  waste  to 
lands  far  distant  from  their  original  homes,  until  eventu- 
ally their  impetuous  hosts  had  swept  the  vast  region  from 
the  Baltic  Sea  to  the  desert  of  Sahara,  from  the  Caucasus 
to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  and  until  Alaric  **  secretly- 
aspired  to  plant  the  Gothic  standard  on  the  walls  of  Rome 
and  to  enrich  his  army  with  the  accumulated  spoils  of  a 
hundred  triumphs." 

Gliding  down  the  tortuous  Danube  past  picturesque  towns 
and  villages  and  through  delightful  woodlands  and  sun- 
kissed  vineyards  our  steamer  soon  carries  us  over  the  short 
distance  which  intervenes  between  Carnuntum  and  loyal  old 
Pozsony — the  capital  of  Hungary  before  it  was  transferred 
to  Budapest.  In  this  cosmopolitan  city  of  historic  and  tra- 
ditional lore  an  incident  is  recalled  which  puts  in  strong 
relief  the  bravery  and  chivalrous  character  of  the  Hun- 
garians and  shows  how  quick  they  are  to  act  when  a  strong 
appeal  is  made  to  their  loyalty  and  patriotism. 

Queen  Maria  Theresa,  finding  herself  threatened  by 
enemies  on  all  sides,  convened  the  estates  of  the  realm  in 
the  throne  room  of  the  castle  of  Pozsony.  Here  the  fair 
young  sovereign,  with  the  crown  of  St.  Stephen  on  her  head 
and  an  infant  son  in  her  arms,  delivered  in  Latin  this  brief 
but  stirring  address: 

The  disastrous  situation  of  our  affairs  has  moved  us  to 
lay  before  our  dear  and  faithful  States  of  Hungary  the 
recent  invasion  of  Austria,  the  danger  now  impending  over 
this  Kingdom  and  a  proposal  for  the  consideration  of  a 
remedy.  The  very  existence  of  the  Kingdom  of  Hungary, 
of  our  own  person,  of  our  children  and  our  crown  is  now 
at  stake.  Forsaken  by  all,  we  place  our  sole  resource  in  the 
fidelity,  arms  and  long-tried  valor  of  the  Hungarians; 
exhorting  you,  the  States  and  Orders,  to  deliberate  without 
delay  in  this  extreme  danger,  on  the  most  effectual  meas- 
ures for  the  security  of  our  person,  of  our  children  and 
of  our  crown,  and  to  carry  them  into  immediate  execution. 
In  regard  to  ourself,  the  faithful  States  and  Orders  of 
Hungary  shall  experience  our  hearty  cooperation  in  all 


16   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

things  which  may  promote  the  pristine  happiness  of  this 
Kingdom  and  the  honor  of  the  people.^ 

The  effect  of  this  indirect  and  impassioned  appeal  was 
electrical.  The  assembled  multitude,  the  elite  of  Hungary's 
nobility,  instantly  drew  their  swords  and  shouted,  "Vitam 
et  sanguinem.  Moriamur  pro  rege  nostro  Maria  Theresa" '^^ 
— "Our  blood  and  our  life.  Let  us  die  for  our  King  Maria 
Theresa."  From  this  moment  the  entire  nation  rallied  to 
the  support  of  their  sovereign  and  her  eventual  triumph 
was  assured. 

This  dramatic  episode  is  commemorated  by  an  imposing 
equestrian  statue  of  Maria  Theresa  in  the  Coronation  Hill 
Platz  which  bears  the  simple  but  eloquent  inscription — 
Vitam  et  sanguinem. 

The  fact  that  Maria  Theresa  and  her  audience  spoke 
Latin,  instead  of  Hungarian  or  German,  on  the  memorable 
occasion  referred  to  is  easily  explained.  For  centuries 
Latin  had  been  in  Hungary  the  language  of  diplomacy. 
Lectures  in  the  University  were  given  in  Latin  and  the 
language  of  Cicero  and  Virgil  was  spoken  by  the  deputies 
in  Parliament.  Indeed,  until  a  few  decades  ago,  every  man 
of  liberal  education  was  supposed  to  be  able  to  write  and 
speak  Latin  with  ease  and  fluency. 

''When  I  was  a  girl,"  a  Hungarian  countess  told  me,  ''the 
language  at  table  in  my  father's  house  was  always  Latin. 
All  of  us,  boys  and  girls,  spoke  it  as  well  as  our  mother 
tongue." 

I  met  many  Hungarian  priests  who  spoke  Latin  in  prefer- 
ence to  their  native  Magyar.  One  of  them  was  an  orator 
of  exceptional  eloquence  and  could  give  an  extemporaneous 
address  in  Latin  without  hesitating  for  a  word  and  always 
in  the  purest  Latinity. 

0  History  of  the  House  of  Austria  from  the  Foundation  of  the  Monarchy  hy 
Rhodolph  of  Hapshurgh  to  the  Death  of  Leopold  the  Second,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  440, 
441   (by  W.  Cox,  London,  1820). 

10  C/.     Voltaire's  Precis  du  Siecle  de  Louis  XV,  Chap.  VI  (Paris,  1828). 

The  application  to  Maria  Theresa  of  the  title  Rex — King — instead  of  Regina 
— Queen — was  in  accordance  with  a  peculiar  custom  in  Hungary  which  re- 
quired that  her  signature  on  all  public  documents  should  be  Maria  Theresa 
Bex. 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE    17 

An  Englishman  who  made  a  journey  up  the  Danube  near 
the  middle  of  the  last  century  tells  us  that  he  heard  on  the 
steamer  a  "party  of  Hungarian  priests  and  a  large  assem- 
blage of  second-class  passengers  conversing  in  Latin  with 
as  much  facility  as  if  it  were  their  native  tongue. ' '  ^^ 

The  German  traveler,  J.  G.  Kohl,  who  wrote  about  the 
same  time  as  the  writer  just  quoted,  gives  a  part  of  the  con- 
versation he  had  with  a  Benedictine  monk  at  the  abbey  of 
Tihany  during  a  game  of  billiards.  Those  of  my  readers 
who  understand  Latin  will  be  interested  in  some  of  the 
peculiar  words  and  expressions  used : 

''Ubi  globus  Dominationis?" — ''Where  is  your  Lord- 
ship's ball?" 

"Ibi.    Incipiamus." — "Here.    Let  us  begin." 

"Dignetur  procedere." — "Please  begin." 

"Dolendum  est.  Si  ccerulous  hue  venisset." — "What  a 
pity !    If  the  blue  had  but  come  this  way. " 

"Fallit,  fallit." — "It  misses,  it  misses." 

''Nunc  flavus  recte  ad  manum  mihi  est." — "Now  the  yel- 
low ball  is  right  to  my  hand. ' ' 

''Bene!  Bene!  Nunc  Hannibal  ad  portam,**^ — "Good I 
Good  I    Now,  look  out. ' ' 

"Dignetur  duble." — "Please  double." 

"Fallit."— "A  miss." 

"0  si  homo  nunquam  falleret,  esset  invincibilis." — "If 
one  never  missed,  one  would  be  invincible." 

"Reverende  Pater!  Nunc  tota  positio  difficilis  est," — 
"Reverend  Father,  the  position  is  now  very  diflScult." 

"Nihil  video,  nisi  cceruleum  et  rubrum  per  cuter  e  velles." 
— "I  see  nothing  except  a  carom  on  the  blue  and  red." 

"Ah!  Ah!  Subtiliter  volui  et  nihil  hdbeo." — "Ah  me  I 
I  wished  to  make  an  extra  good  play  and  I  have  nothing." 


"  Fraser'a  Magazine,  Vol.  XXTT,  p.  692.  Another  Englishman  declares : 
"The  Latin  is  bo  common  in  Hungary  that  during  my  travels  I  frequently 
heard  the  servants  and  the  postillions  converse  and  dispute  with  great  fluency 
in  that  language."    Cox,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  V,  p.  440. 


l&      FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

**Bene!  Bene!  Fecisti.  Finis  ludi,'* — "Good!  Good  I 
fTou  have  made  it.    The  game  is  ended."  " 

After  reading  the  foregoing  who  will  say  that  Latin  is  a 
dead  language  in  Hungary? 


From  Budapest  to  the  Black  Sea 

Again  the  scene  has  changed  and  dim  descried 
A  silver  crescent  marks  the  Danube's  tide; 
Where  hroad  sails  glancing  o'er  the  regal  stream, 
Spread  their  white  bosoms  to  the  morning  beam, 
With  towers  that  skirt  and  towns  that  seem  to  lave 
Their  battled  walls  in  that  majestic  wave. 

From  Pozsony  to  Budapest  we  passed  many  places  of 
great  scenic  beauty  and  historic  interest.  Among  them  was 
Esztergom,  which  possesses  the  most  beautiful  cathedral  in 
Hungary.  It  is  the  birthplace  of  St.  Stephen,  patron  saint 
of  the  country  and  the  see  of  Hungary's  ecclesiastical 
primate. 

No  city  in  Europe  offers  a  more  superb  approach  than 
does  Budapest  to  the  traveler  who  enters  it  on  the  deck  of 
one  of  the  beautiful  steamers  of  the  Danube  Navigation 
Company.  As  we  glide  doAvnstream  towards  the  twin  city, 
an  immense  mass  of  palatial  structures  suddenly  bursts  on 
our  view.  Among  them  is  the  imposing  Royal  Palace,  which 
crowns  an  eminence  on  the  right  bank  of  the  many-spired 
House  of  Parliament,  which  stands  on  the  left.  Soon  we 
get  a  glimpse  of  the  beautiful  boulevards  along  the  river, 
which,  at  the  hour  of  our  arrival,  are  crowded  with  ani- 
mated, happy  multitudes,  who  are  enjoying  their  daily 
promenade  and  watching  the  arrival  and  departure  of  the 
numerous  steamers  and  -smaller  craft  which  contribute  so 
pauch  to  the  life  of  the  city. 

Hungarians  declare  that  theirs  is  the  most  beautiful  of 
all  European  capitals,  and,  judging  by  one's  impression 
of  the  city  as  seen  from  an  arriving  steamer,  most  visitors, 

12  Tour  of  Austria,  p.  372  (London,  1844). 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE         19 

I  think,  will  agree  with  them.  Certain  it  is  that  neither 
Paris  nor  London  nor  Petrograd  can  claim  such  an  enchant- 
ing river  view  as  that  in  which  Budapest  so  justly  glories. 
And  they  are  as  proud  of  their  country  as  of  their  capital. 
According  to  an  old  Hungarian  proverb,  '*  Extra  Hungarian 
non  est  vita" — ''Life  is  not  life  outside  of  Hungary."" 
''Have  we  not,'*  the  people  here  ask,  "all  that  is  necessary 
for  our  welfare?  Our  blessed  soil  provides  for  all  our 
wants. ' '  And  Sandor  Petofi,  Hungary 's  greatest  lyric  poet, 
does  not  hesitate  to  declare : 

If  the  earth  he  Ood's  crown, 
Our  country  is  its  fairest  jewel. 

But  it  is  the  people  of  this  fair  capital  that  make  the 
strongest  appeal  to  the  traveler.  It  matters  not  if  he  be  a 
stranger.  Their  proverbial  hospitality  immediately  makes 
him  feel  at  home.  Like  the  Viennese  they  have  a  savoir 
vivre  that  is  truly  admirable.  Their  courtesy  and  cordiality 
are  boundless  and  make  one  desire  to  prolong  one's  sojourn 
among  them.  And  one  no  sooner  comes  in  contact  with 
them  than  he  is  conscious  of  a  certain  indefinable  charm 
that  is  found  only  among  people  of  rare  culture  and  refine- 
ment. In  leaving  them — old  friends  and  new — ^I  experi- 
enced in  a  peculiarly  keen  manner  the  sincere  regret  that 
I  have  so  often  felt  in  other  parts  of  the  world  when  the 
hour  came  for  departure  from  people  whom  I  had  learned 
to  admire  and  love  for  their  exceptional  goodness  and 
worth. 

From  Budapest  to  Belgrade  our  course  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  distance  was  almost  due  south.  For  twenty-four 
hours  we  journeyed  through  the  Alfold — the  great  central 
plain  of  Hungary — about  which  so  much  has  been  written 
during  the  last  few  years.  In  many  respects  it  reminds  one 
of  the  broad  maize  lands  of  eastern  Kansas  and  Nebraska. 
It  is  also  equally  productive  and  has  for  centuries  con- 
is  Another  saying  frequently  accompanies  this,  to  wit:  .Nullum  vinutn, 
nisi  Hungaricum — Hungarian  is  the.  only  wine. 


20   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

t 

stituted  one  of  the  most  important  granaries  of  Central 
Europe. 

Although  to  the  traveler  the  Alf  old — the  Hungarian  word 
for  lowland — offers  little  of  scenic  interest,  the  Magyar 
bard  finds  in  it  as  much  to  awaken  his  muse  as  does  the 
Arabian  poet  in  the  broad  expanse  of  his  much-loved  des- 
ert ;  and  each  would  recognize  as  his  own  the  sentiment  of 
Sandor  Petofi,  when  he  sings : 

I  love  the  plains.    It  is  only  there  I  feel  free. 

My  eyes  can  wander  as  they  please,  quite  unconstrained. 

One  is  not  confined  iy  barriers. 

Throughout  the  region  which  we  are  now  traversing 
legend  still  lingers,  but  it  is  history  that  has  now  most  to 
tell.  And  how  much  could  it  not  relate  regarding  the  strug- 
gle between  the  barbarians  and  the  Romans  in  these  parts — 
of  the  long  contests  between  Christians  and  Ottomans.  It 
was  at  Mohacs  that  the  Turks,  under  Solyman  the  Magnifi- 
cent, achieved,  in  1526,  the  decisive  victory  which  enabled 
them  to  hold  Hungary  in  a  state  of  vassalage  for  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years.  It  was  at  the  same  place  that  the  Ottoman 
forces,  after  being  defeated  by  Sobieski  in  Vienna,  made 
their  final  stand  before  they  were  forced  to  relinquish  the 
land  which  they  had  so  long  held  in  subjection. 

Further  down  the  river  is  Illock,  which  was  for  a  time  the 
home,  as  it  is  the  burial  place,  of  St.  John  Capistran.  It 
was  this  celebrated  Franciscan  friar  who  led  an  army  of 
Crusaders,  which  he  had  collected  by  his  preaching,  to  the 
assistance  of  Hunyady  Janos  when  this  renowned  warrior 
compelled  the  Turks  under  Mohammed  II  to  raise  the  siege 
of  Belgrade. 

Still  further  down  stream  is  the  little  town  of  Petervarad 
with  its  strong  fortress,  long  known  as  the  Gibraltar  of  the 
Danube.  It  is  so  named  because  Peter  the  Hermit  here 
marshaled  in  1096  the  hosts  which  he  had  assembled  from 
far  and  wide  for  the  First  Crusade. 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE         21 

As  the  tones  of  the  vesper  bell  of  a  village  chapel  are 
wafted  over  the  peaceful  waters,  the  famed  "White  City" 
of  Serbia  appears  in  the  distance.  Situated  at  the  con- 
fluence of  the  Danube  and  the  Save,  Belgrade,  the  capital 
of  Serbia,  has  for  more  than  two  thousand  years  been  a 
strategic  point  of  prime  importance.  Occupied  by  Celts, 
generations  before  the  Christian  era,  it  became,  under  the 
name  Singidunum,  a  stronghold  of  the  Romans,  who  held 
it  for  four  centuries.  It  subsequently  belonged  to  the 
Byzantine  Empire  and,  later  on,  was  occupied  at  various 
times  by  Avars,  Huns,  Gepids,  Goths,  Sarmatians,  Turks, 
Hungarians,  Austrians,  until  in  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  the  Serbians  made  it  their  capital.  The 
Turks,  however,  did  not  relinquish  possession  of  its  citadel 
until  1867. 

Few  places  have  passed  through  more  sieges  or  experi- 
enced more  frequently  the  horrors  of  war  than  Belgrade. 
Aside  from  its  historical  associations,  I  found  little  of  in- 
terest in  the  city.  The  inhabitants  had  none  of  the  gayety 
and  animation  of  the  people  of  Vienna  and  Budapest. 
Their  cheerless  faces  were  like  those  of  a  race  that  has  wit- 
nessed many  tragedies  and  is  living  in  constant  fear  of 
impending  disaster. 

And  what  country,  indeed,  has  passed  through  more  and 
greater  disasters  than  Serbia?  For  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  during  the  past  twenty-five  centuries  of  its  history 
it  has  been  almost  continually  in  a  condition  of  social  unrest 
and  political  chaos.  Times  without  number  the  tides  of 
invasion  and  devastation  have  swept  over  this  unfortunate 
land.  The  general  poverty  and  intellectual  stagnation  of 
the  people  were  aggravated  by  the  follies  of  their  rulers 
and  by  dynastic  scandals  that  shocked  the  civilized  world. 
For  generations  at  a  time  the  administration  of  the  country 
was  little  better  than  organized  brigandage.  Unscrupulous 
oflScials,  living  in  Oriental  indolence,  prospered  on  the  life- 
blood  of  the  down-trodden  peasantry,  for  whom  justice  was 
but  a  myth.   Blood  feuds,  political  murders  and  internecine 


22       FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

strife  were  long  endemic,  and  guaranties  for  life  and  prop- 
erty were,  consequently,  impossible. 

And  this  was  true  not  only  for  Serbia  but  also  for  the 
whole  of  the  Balkan  peninsula — for  Bulgaria,  for  Mace- 
donia, for  Roumania  and  for  the  half -barbarous  principali- 
ties along  the  Adriatic.  So  completely  separated  were  they 
from  the  rest  of  the  world  that  little  was  known  of  them  in 
western  Europe  until  less  than  a  century  ago,  when  they 
began  to  give  stronger  evidence  of  national  consciousness 
than  they  had  previously  exhibited,  and  to  manifest  a  united 
purpose  to  liberate  themselves  from  the  Ottoman  yoke, 
under  which  they  had  suffered  for  so  many  centuries. 

But  it  would  be  contrary  to  the  teaching  of  history  to 
assert  that  all  the  disorders  endured  and  all  the  cruelties 
suffered  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  Balkans  during  the  long 
period  when  they  were  deprived  of  their  independence  were 
due  to  the  Turks.  Nothing  is  farther  from  the  truth.  The 
fact  is  that  the  various  Balkan  races — the  Greeks  and  Bul- 
gars  for  instance — ^hated  one  another  far  more  than  they — 
either  individually  or  collectively — Abated  the  Turks. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  humanitarianism  [as  has  been 
well  said]  it  is  beyond  a  doubt  that  much  less  blood  was 
spilt  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula  during  the  five  hundred  years 
of  Turkish  rule  than  during  the  five  hundred  years  of 
Christian  rule  which  preceded  them ;  indeed  it  would  have 
been  difficult  to  spill  more.  It  is  also  a  pure  illusion  to 
think  of  the  Turks  as  exceptionally  brutal  or  cruel;  they 
are  just  as  good-natured  and  as  good-humored  as  anybody 
else ;  it  is  only  when  their  military  and  religious  passions 
are  aroused  that  they  become  more  reckless  and  ferocious 
than  other  people.  It  was  not  the  Turks  who  taught  cruelty 
to  the  Christians  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula;  the  latter  had 
nothing  to  learn  in  this  respect.^* 

But,  notwithstanding  the  long  and  trying  ordeal  through 
which  the  peoples  of  the  Balkans  have  passed,  a  new  era 

1*  Nevill  Forbes,  in  The  Balkans,  A  History  of  Bulgaria,  Servia,  Greece, 
Roumania,  Turkey,  p.  48   (Oxford,  1915). 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE    23 

seems  to  be  dawning  for  them  at  last.  Education  is  receiv- 
ing more  attention  and  law  and  order  are  gradually 
assuring  to  the  masses  the  blessings  of  civilized  life.  When, 
however,  we  think  or  speak  of  the  Balkans  and  their  inhabi- 
tants there  are,  as  the  distinguished  British  writer  D.  G. 
Hogarth  reminds  us,  certain  salutary  things  to  bear  in 
mind,  among  which  is  that  ''less  than  two  hundred  years 
ago  England  had  its  highwaymen  on  all  roads  and  its 
smuggler  dens  and  caravans,  Scotl^d  its  caterans  and 
Ireland  its  moonlighters."  ^^ 

As  I  viewed  from  the  citadel  the  magnificent  panorama 
that  unfolded  itself  before  me  in  the  broad  valleys  of  the 
Save  and  the  Danube,  I  recalled  certain  alliterative  verses 
which  I  was  wont  to  recite  in  my  youth,  beginning  with 

An  Austrian  army  awfully  arrayed, 
Boldly  hy  haitery  besieged  Belgrade, 
Cossack,  commander,  cannonading  come, 
Deal  devastation;  dire  destructive  doom}^ 

While  gazing  at  the  sun-bathed  vineyards,  ruin-crowned 
heights  and  broad,  verdant  plains  which  followed  one  an- 
other in  rapid  succession  as  our  steamer  bore  us  seawards, 
I  was  especially  impressed  by  the  multiplicity  of  languages 
I  heard  spoken  by  the  passengers.  For  among  my  fellow 
travelers  were  Germans,  French,  Turks,  Serbs,  Croats, 
Russians,  Bulgarians,  Roumanians,  Greeks,  Albanians, 
Italians,  Poles,  Slovaks,  English,  and  Americans,  and  prob- 
ably several  others  whom  I  did  not  recognize.  There  was, 
indeed,  a  Babel  of  tongues  such  as  one  would  scarcely  find 
elsewhere.  How  the  famous  polyglot,  Mezzofanti,  would 
have  reveled  in  such  a  gathering  where  he  could  have  held 

loTAe  Balkans,  p.  6  (Oxford,  1915). 

16  It  is  curious  to  remember  that  Attila's  first  attack  upon  the  Roman 
£mpire  "was  delivered  at  the  very  spot  upon  the  Danube  where  the  Germanic 
powers  in  August,  1914,  began  their  offensive,  Attila  directed  his  armies 
upon  the  frontiers  of  modern  Servia  at  the  point  where  the  Save  joins  the 
Danube,  where  the  city  of  Singidunum  rose  then  and  where  to-day  Belgrade 
stands."  Cf.  Attila  and  the  Huns,  p.  37  (by  Edward  Hutton,  New  York, 
1915). 


24       FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

converse  with  all  of  them,  as  he  was  wont  to  do  with  the 
students  of  the  Propaganda,  in  Rome,  who  came  from  all 
parts  of  the  world  and  with  the  languages  of  all  whom  the 
illustrious  Cardinal  was  perfectly  familiar .^^ 

And  variety  of  garb  of  this  motley  crowd  was  almost  as 
manifold  as  was  that  of  their  languages  and  dialects.  From 
the  sedate  Englishman  in  tweed  to  the  animated  Roumanian 
in  his  Phrygian  cap  of  liberty,  the  tarbooshed  Ottoman 
dreamily  fingering  his  tespis  (string  of  beads),  the  sad- 
faced  Serb  with  his  conical  Astrakan  cap,  and  the  voluble 
Albanian  in  a  snow-white  fustanella,  there 'was  every  con- 
ceivable variety  of  wearing  apparel.  And  the  styles  and 
colors  of  the  dresses  worn  by  the  women  exhibited  even 
greater  diversity.  They  could  be  compared  only  with  those 
of  the  infinitude  of  shades  and  adornments  of  the  feathered 
songsters  of  a  large  aviary  or  of  the  multitudinous  flowers 
of  a  botanical  garden. 

From  Belgrade  eastwards  Oriental  color  becomes  rapidly 
more  pronounced.  This  results  from  the  long  occupation 
by  the  Ottomans  of  the  country  through  which  we  are  now 
passing  and  constant  communication  between  Turkey  and 
the  Balkans. 

The  first  objects  of  note  to  arrest  our  attention  below 
Belgrade  are  the  great  ruined  fortress  of  Sendria  and,  fur- 
ther downstream,  the  ruins  of  the  two  castles  of  Galambocz 
and  Laszlovar.  These  massive  strongholds,  located  on 
opposite  sides  of  the  river,  guarded  what  was  long  known 
as  ''The  Key  of  the  Danube."  They,  like  the  scores  of 
ruins  which  we  have  passed  on  our  way  from  Ratisbon,  are 
rich  in  historic  and  legendary  associations  of  the  most 
interesting  character. 

Near  Galambocz  is  shown  a  great  cavern,  in  which,  legend 
has  it,  St.  George  slew  the  dragon.  When  we  reflect  that 
practically  nothing  is  known  of  the  patron  of  chivalry  and 
the  champion  of  Christendom,  except  that  he  suffered  mar- 

iTSee  the  Life  of  Cardinal  Mezzofanti,  pp.  411-419  (by  C.  W.  Russell, 
London,  1858). 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE    25 

tyrdom  at  or  near  Lydda  in  Palestine  before  the  time  of 
the  Emperor  Constantine,  it  becomes  difficult  to  account 
for  the  existence  of  this  dragon-slaying  tradition  in  this 
spot.  Its  origin  may  be  due  to  pilgrims  or  Crusaders,  who 
brought  it  from  the  Holy  Land  in  the  same  way  as  they 
popularized  the  cultus  of  the  Saint  in  England  as  early  as 
the  days  of  Arculph  and  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion. 

But  after  all,  it  is  no  more  difficult  to  account  for  the 
contest  between  St.  George  and  the  dragon  here  than  at  "a 
stagne  or  a  pond  like  a  sea,"  near  Silena  in  Libya,  as  we 
read  of  it  in  Caxton's  version  of  the  Legenda  Aurea,  or,  to 
explain  the  associations  of  the  martyr-knight  with  the 
Order  of  the  Garter,  the  Union  Jack  or  the  white  ensign  of 
the  British  Navy. 

Immediately  below  Galambocz  we  enter  the  wildest  and 
grandest  scenery  along  the  Danube.  The  foaming  rapids 
and  the  towering  cliffs  of  the  gorge  of  Kazan  recall  the 
famed  canons  of  Colorado  or  Montana,  although  in  magni- 
tude and  grandeur  it  is  far  inferior  to  the  stupendous 
gorges  of  the  Arkansas  or  the  Yellowstone. 

But  far  more  interesting  to  me  than  the  gorge  itself  was 
an  inscription  at  the  lower  end  which  is  cut  in  the  solid 
rock  and  commemorates  the  completion  of  the  marvelous 
roadway  which  the  Romans  constructed  along  the  western 
face  of  this  formidable  defile.  To  me  it  seemed  one  of  the 
most  extraordinary  of  all  the  countless  achievements  of 
imperial  Rome  in  the  entire  length  of  the  Danube  valley. 
The  inscription  reads : 

IMP.  CiES.  D.  NEBV^,  FIL.IUS.  NERVA.  TRAJANUS. 
AUG.   GERM.   PONT.   MAX.    .    .    . 

But  even  more  noteworthy  than  the  wild  Kazan  ravine 
and  the  wonderful  Roman  thoroughfare  is  the  celebrated 
Iron  Gate  at  the  confines  of  Serbia,  Hungary  and  Roumania. 
This  narrow  defile  long  constituted  an  almost  impassable 
barrier  to  intercourse  between  the  peoples  of  the  upper  and 
lower  Danube.  During  low  water,  navigation,  except  for  the 


26   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

smallest  craft,  was  impossible,  until  the  completion,  in  1896, 
of  a  channel  which  was  blasted  out  of  the  living  rock  on  the 
Serbian  side  of  the  seething  cataract.  This  canal  guaran- 
tees a  sufficient  depth  of  water  the  entire  year  for  steamers 
of  considerable  draft  and  contributes  enormously  to  the 
importance  of  the  Danube  as  a  highway  of  international 
commerce. 

Shortly  below  the  Iron  Gate  we  were  shown  remains  of 
the  mammoth  stone  bridge  which  was  built  by  Trajan  across 
the  Danube.  This  was  even  a  more  astonishing  achieve- 
ment than  the  construction  of  the  roadway  through  the 
gorge  of  Kazan.  I  had  often  admired  the  wonderful,  life- 
like reliefs  of  Trajan's  column  in  Rome,  which  represent, 
among  other  things,  the  celebrated  campaign  of  the  em- 
peror in  Dacia,  and  I  was  delighted  to  have  the  opportunity 
to  contemplate  the  remains  of  the  road  and  the  bridge  he 
built  during  this  memorable  period  of  his  reign.  Dacia, 
which  embraced  modern  Roumania,  is  noted  as  being  the 
only  province  that  the  Romans  ever  possessed  north  of  the 
Danube.  And  '*the  last  province  to  be  won,  it  was,"  as 
Freeman  puts  it,  "the  first  to  be  given  up;  for  Aurelian 
withdrew  from  it  and  transferred  its  name  to  the  Moesian 
land,  immediately  south  of  the  Danube. ' '  ^® 

But  the  remarkable  thing  about  Roumania,  as  the  same 
eminent  historian  observes,  is  that  although  it  has  been  cut 
off  "for  so  many  ages  from  all  Roman  influences,  forming, 
as  it  has  done,  one  of  the  great  highways  of  barbarian 
migration,  a  large  part  of  Dacia,  namely,  the  modern 
Roumanian  principality,  still  keeps  its  Roman  language  no 
less  than  Spain  and  Gaul.  In  one  way  the  land  is  to  this  day 
more  Roman  than  Spain  or  Gaul,  as  its  people  still  call 
themselves  by  the  Roman  name."  ^® 

The  Roumanians  are  not  only  proud  of  their  Roman 
origin  but  take  special  pleasure  in  recalling  the  fact,  espe- 
cially when  conversing  with  foreigners.    "We  are,"  they 

18(7/.   Historical  Geography  of  Europe,  p.  70  (London,  1881). 
i»Ibid.,  p.  71. 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE    27 

will  tell  you,  ** neither  Slavs,  nor  Germans,  nor  Turks;  we 
are  Roumanians. '  * 

Roumania,  they  will  insist,  is  a  Latin  islet  in  the  midst  of 
a  Slavic  and  Finnish  ocean  which  surrounds  it.  This  island 
when  known  as  Dacia  was  in  reality  a  new  Italy  and  its 
inhabitants  were  the  Italians  of  the  Danube  and  the  Carpa- 
thians. In  a  recent  speech  delivered  in  Rome,  the  dis- 
tinguished Roumanian  historian,  V.  A.  Urechia,  proudly 
claimed  the  capital  of  the  Caesars  as  the  mother  of  his 
country — ''Nous  sommes  ici  pour  dire  a  tout  le  monde  que 
Rome  est  notre  mere." 

A  short  distance  below  the  ruins  of  Trajan's  bridge  we 
pass,  at  the  embouchure  of  the  Timok  River,  the  frontier 
of  Serbia  and  Bulgaria.  Thenceforward,  until  we  reach  the 
Black  Sea,  we  have  Bulgaria  on  our  right  and  Roumania  on 
our  left.  But  there  is  little  on  either  side  to  arrest  our 
attention,  for  the  history  of  this  part  of  the  world  is  little 
more  than  a  chronicle  of  the  horrors  of  warfare  and 
marauding  armies  from  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great. 
No  part  of  Europe,  not  even  Belgium  or  northern  Italy,  can 
point  to  so  many  battlefields  in  the  same  limited  area,  and 
none  of  the  many  peoples  inhabiting  the  vast  Danube  basin 
have  suffered  more  than  Roumania  from  the  calamities  of 
war — of  the  long  and  bloody  struggle  between  the  Cross 
and  the  Crescent  for  the  mastery  of  this  part  of  Europe. 

As  I  surveyed  the  broad  plains  of  Bulgaria,  I  vividly 
recalled  the  thrill  of  horror  that  stirred  the  civilized  world 
when  my  old  friend  and  schoolmate,  Januarius  A.  McGahan, 
of  Perry  County,  Ohio,  there  penned  his  famous  letters  to 
the  London  Daily  News  on  the  Turkish  atrocities  in 
Bulgaria.^" 

He  told  the  Ottoman  authorities  that  their  depredations 

20  While  I  knew  the  honesty  and  truthfulness  of  McGahan  too  well  ever 
to  question  his  statements  regarding  the  cruelties  of  the  Turks  which  he  so 
vividly  described,  I  have  never  had  any  doubt  that  most  of  the  atrocities  that 
80  shocked  the  world  at  the  time  were  provoked  by  the  people  of  the  Balkans 
themselves.  Serbs,  Bulgars,  and  Greeks  had  organized  a  systematic  propa- 
ganda for  the  dismemberment  of  Macedonia  and  "when  those  methods  flagged 
a  bomb  would  be  thrown  at,  let  us  say,  a  Turkish  official  by  an  agent  pro- 


28   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

and  carnage  would  have  to  cease  forthwith  or  he  would 
have  the  Russian  army  across  the  Danube  in  six  months. 
They  laughed  him  to  scorn.  But  he  was  as  good  as  his 
word.  In  a  brief  space  of  time  the  Russians,  accompanied 
by  their  brave  Roumanian  allies,  were  in  Bulgaria,  and  at 
Plevna  and  Shipka  Pass  the  fate  of  Turkey  in  this  part  of 
Europe  was  sealed  and  the  greater  portion  of  the  Balkan 
peoples  was  at  length  liberated  from  the  Turkish  yoke. 
The  Russians,  under  their  gallant  commander,  Skobeleff, 
pushed  on  to  San  Stefano,  within  sight  of  the  domes  and 
minarets  of  Constantinople.  Then,  by  orders  from  St. 
Petersburg,  the  conquering  general  was  halted  in  his 
course  just  when  Russia's  long-coveted  goal,  the  capital  on 
the  Golden  Horn,  was  within  his  grasp. 

The  chivalrous  McGahan,  whom  his  distinguished  associ- 
ate, Archibald  Forbes,  declared  to  be  the  most  brilliant  war 
correspondent  ^^  that  ever  lived,  was  stricken  with  typhus 

vocateur  of  one  of  the  three  players,  inevitably  resulting  in  the  necessary 
massacre  of  innocent  Turks,  and  an  outcry  in  the  European  press."  Cf.  Nevill 
Forbes,  op.  cit.  p.  66. 

"The  Bulgarian  Atrocities,"  according  to  another  well-informed  writer, 
"were  a  clever  and  unscrupulous  piece  of  diplomacy  on  the  part  of  the  Rus- 
sian Foreign  Office  and  of  the  Pan-Slavist  Committees.  In  May,  1876,  the 
Bulgarian  Committees  at  Bukharest  and  Odessa  organized  an  insurrection 
which  broke  out  simultaneously  in  many  of  the  large  towns  of  Bulgaria, 
accompanied  by  abominable  atrocities  on  Moslems,  'designedly  committed  by 
the  insurgents  as  being  the  means  best  calculated  to  bring  on  a  general 
revolution  in  Bulgaria,  by  rendering  the  position  of  the  Christians,  how- 
ever peaceably  inclined,  so  intolerable  under  the  indiscriminate  retaliation 
which  the  governing  race  were  sure  to  attempt,  as  to  force  them  in  self- 
defence  to  rise.'  "  W.  E.  D.  Allen  in  The  Turks  in  Europe,  p.  166  (London, 
1919). 

21  "Of  all  the  men,"  writes  Forbes,  "who  have  gained  reputation  as  war 
correspondents  I  regard  McGahan  as  the  most  brilliant."  "He  used  to  be 
called  'The  Cossack  correspondent'  because  of  the  swiftness  of  his  movements. 
Frank  Millet  names  him  'Will-o'-the-wisp  of  war  writers.'  George  Augustus 
Sala  pronounced  him  one  of  the  most  cosmopolitan  men  he  had  ever  met — 'a 
scholar,  a  linguist,  a  shrewd  observer,  a  politician  wholly  free  from  party 
prejudice,  a  traveler  as  indefatigable  as  Schyler,  as  dashing  as  Barnaby,  as 
dauntless  as  Stanley.'  "  "No  man  of  his  age  in  recent  years,"  avers  his  friend, 
Lieutenant  Greene,  "has  done  more  to  bring  honor  on  the  name  of  America 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  Europe  and  far  into  Asia. — I  suppose 
that  he  and  Skobeleff  stood  at  the  head  of  their  respective  professions. 

"Year  after  year  the  praises  of  this  bold  adventurer  and  vivid  writer  are 
chanted  in  rude  verse  by  the  peasants  of  the  Balkans,  and  every  year  the 
anniversary  of  his  premature  death  is  commemorated  by  the  singing  of  a 
requiem  mass  in  the  cathedral  at  Tirnovo,  the  ancient  capital  of  Bulgaria. 
When  he  was  riding  among  the  Bulgarian  villages  in  war  time  the  peasants 
used  to  crowd  about  and  kiss  his  hands,  hailing  him  as  their  liberator,  and 


,    ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE         29 

and  after  a  very  brief  illness  died  in  Constantinople,  June 
10,  1878,  in  the  early  bloom  of  a  glorious  manhood.  His 
chief  mourner  was  his  bosom  friend,  the  noble  Skobeleff, 
who,  with  unfeigned  emotion,  declared  at  the  grave  of  his 
illustrious  friend,  whom  he  loved  as  a  brother,  that  his  heart 
was  interred  with  his  beloved  Januarius  and  that  he  had 
nothing  more  to  live  for. 

The  grateful  Bulgarians  erected  a  splendid  monument  to 
the  memory  of  McGahan,  whom  they  recognized  as  their 
deliverer  from  the  age-long  domination  of  the  hated  Turks. 
On  this  monument  were  inscribed  the  words,  Januario  Aloy- 
sio  McGahan,  Patri  Patriaa.  Some  years  later  his  remains 
were  transferred  to  his  home  town.  New  Lexington,  Ohio, 
and  in  its  modest  little  cemetery  is  seen  above  his  last 
resting-place  a  plain  block  of  granite  which  bears  beneath 
the  deathless  hero's  name  the  simple  but  well-earned  trib- 
ute— Liberator  of  Bulgaria. 

On  the  left  bank  of  the  Danube,  slightly  northeast  of 
Plevna,  is  the  little  town  of  Giurgevo,  which  was  founded 
centuries  ago  by  that  wonderful  commercial  metropolis, 
Genoa.  Like  its  great  rival,  Venice,  it  was  long  celebrated 
for  its  commercial  and  military  activities  in  the  Levant  and 
in  the  Crimea.  But  that  its  merchant  princes  should  have 
extended  their  trade  to  the  lower  Danube  in  that  early 
period  when  the  navigation  of  this  great  river  was  so  diffi- 
cult and  dangerous  is  indeed  remarkable. 

From  Giurgevo  I  made  a  hasty  trip  to  Bukharest.  I  did 
not  wish  to  pass  **The  City  of  Delight,"  as  the  attractive 
capital  of  Roumania  is  named,  without  calling  on  some 
friends  there  whom  I  had  not  seen  in  several  years.  But 
neither  the  capital  nor  the  country  was  what  it  had  been 
but  a  few  years  before.  A  note  of  sadness,  in  consequence 
of  the  ravages  of  the  recent  war,  seemed  to  dominate  the 
joyful  greetings  of  an  erstwhile  happy  and  pleasure-loving 

there  were  many  of  the  Bulgars  who  agitated  for  the  choice  of  this  wander- 
ing writer  as  the  head  of  the  principality  whose  creation  his  dispatches  had 
done  so  much  to  establish."  Cf.  Famous  War  Oorreapondenta,  Chap.  IV  (by 
F.  L.  Bullad,  Boston,  1914). 


30   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

people.  It  will,  I  fear,  be  a  long  time  before  one  can  again 
apply  to  Roumania  the  epithet — Dacia  Felt — Happy  Dacia 
— which  it  bore  in  the  days  of  long  ago,  when  it  was  one  of 
the  most  flourishing  colonies  of  the  Roman  Empire.^^  But 
the  self-reliant  people  of  Roumania  are  not  depressed  or 
discouraged  by  the  present  condition  of  their  war-tried 
country.  These  descendants  of  the  Dacians,  whom  the 
Romans  called  **the  most  warlike  of  men,"  have  abiding 
confidence  in  their  recuperative  power  and  their  ability  to 
make  good  their  claim  to  an  honorable  position  among  the 
nations  of  the  civilized  world.  Their  native  proverb — 
Romanul  non  pere — The  Roumanian  never  dies — shows  in 
three  words  what  manner  of  men  they  are  and  what  may 
be  expected  of  them  when  they  shall  have  rallied  from  the 
havoc  of  war  and  shall  again  be  free  to  devote  themselves 
to  the  stimulating  arts  of  peace. 

Among  the  many  things  that  especially  impressed  me  in 
Roumania  was  the  large  number  of  gypsies.  In  no  part  of 
the  world,  it  is  said,  are  they  so  numerous  in  proportion 
to  the  population  as  among  the  descendants  of  the  ancient 
Dacians.  The  chief  reason  for  this  is  that  these  strange, 
dark-eyed,  music-loving  nomads  from  India  have  met  a 
kinder  reception  here  than  in  other  countries,  where  they 
have  been  regarded  as  pariahs  and  often  treated  with 
harshness  bordering  on  cruelty. 

From  Giurgevo  to  the  Black  Sea  the  broad,  multi-islanded 
Danube  sweeps  majestically  through  the  ever-expanding, 
reed-covered  lowlands — the  home  of  many  kinds  of  water- 
fowl— and  the  far  extending  acres  devoted  to  pasturage  and 
agriculture,  which  contribute  so  much  to  the  commerce  and 
wealth  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula.    Near  the  village  of  Ras- 

22  After  Trajan  had  conquered  the  Dacians  he  established  in  the  newly 
acquired  territory  a  large  body  of  Roman  colonists.  But  they  were  by  no 
means  all  of  Latin  blood,  for  they  were  drawn,  according  to  Eutropius,  from 
all  parts  of  the  Roman  Empire — ex  toto  orhe  romano.  Numerous  votive 
inscriptions  found  in  the  country  show  that  among  the  colonists  besides  those 
from  Italy,  were  representatives  from  Gaul,  Germany,  Dalmatia,  Phrygia, 
Galatia,  Africa,  Egypt,  and  far-off  Palmyra.  But,  notwithstanding  this  com- 
plexity of  ethnical  stock,  it  was  always  those  of  Latin  blood  and  Latin  speech 
that  dominated. 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE    31 

sova,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river,  we  see  what  remains 
of  Trajan's  wall,  which  extends  from  the  Danube  to  Con- 
stanza  on  the  Black  Sea.  This  earthen  rampart  was  con- 
structed during  the  Eoman  occupation  of  the  country  to 
prevent  barbarian  incursions  into  the  colonial  possessions 
of  the  empire.  But,  like  the  wall  of  Probus,  connecting  the 
Danube  with  the  Rhine,  it  withstood  but  a  short  while  the 
ever-increasing  onrush  of  the  savage  hordes  from  the  north. 

Not  far  from  this  relic  of  Roman  dominion  in  this  part 
of  the  world  is  the  colossal  steel  railway  bridge  across  the 
Danube,  completed  in  1895,  and  justly  regarded  as  one  of 
the  greatest  engineering  achievements  of  modern  times. 

At  Braila  and  Galatz — Roumania's  great  ports  of  entry — 
we  were  greatly  impressed  by  the  activity  and  enterprise 
of  these  flourishing  entrepots  of  commerce.  But  I  must 
confess  I  was  here  more  impressed  by  what  tradition  de- 
clares to  be  the  spot  where  Darius  Hystaspes  built  a  bridge 
across  the  Danube  at  the  time  of  his  famous  campaign 
against  the  Scythians,  more  than  five  centuries  B.  C.*' 

And  what  a  war-theater  this  ill-fated  land  has  been  since 
that  far-off  time !  Philip  of  Macedon,  Alexander  the  Great, 
Trajan,  and  countless  leaders  of  barbarian  and  Turkish 
hordes  have  been  here  or  in  the  vicinity  during  the  twenty- 
five  centuries  that  have  intervened  between  the  advent  of 
Darius  and  his  resistless  legions.  Certain  spots  of  the  earth 
seem  to  be  perennial  battle  centers  and  the  land  bordering 
this  part  of  the  Danube,  as  history  shows,  is  one  of  the  most 
notable  of  them. 

It  is  in  this  part  of  the  Danube  that  one  begins  to  have  an 
adequate  idea  of  the  size  of  this  historic  waterway  and  of 
its    transcendent    importance    in   the    mercantile    life    of 


28  For  an  illuminating  account,  with  a  map,  of  this  much  discussed  cam- 
paign of  Darius  against  the  Scythians,  see  The  Geographical  System  of 
Herodotus,  Vol.  I,  sec.  7,  8  (by  J.  Renneli,  London,  1830).  Cf.  also  The  Five 
Great  Monarchies,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  434,  435  (by  G.  Rawlinson,  New  York,  1881) ; 
The  History  of  Herodotus,  Melpomene,  87-143;  E.  H.  Bunbury's  A  History  of 
Ancient  Geography  Among  the  Greeks  and  Romans  from  the  earliest  Ages 
till  the  Fall  of  the  RoTnan  Empire,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  202-206,  217  (London,  1883). 


32   FBOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Europe.  It  is  surpassed  by  no  other  European  river  except 
the  Volga.  From  its  source  in  the  lovely  park  of  Prince 
Fiirstenberg,  at  Donaueschingen,  to  where  it  delivers  its 
mighty  tribute  to  the  Black  Sea,  the  length  of  the  Danube 
is  nearly  eighteen  hundred  miles — more  than  two-thirds  of 
that  of  our  famed  Mississippi. 

But  in  the  amount  and  character  of  the  traflfic  it  bears 
and  the  number  of  people  it  serves,  the  Danube  is  incom- 
parably superior  to  the  Volga  and  even  to  our  great 
** Father  of  Waters."  The  Volga,  like  the  Mississippi,  is 
only  a  national  river,  while  the  Danube  majestically  sweeps 
through  many  principalities  and  kingdoms  and  empires  of 
Europe  and  assures  easy  relations  between  regions  widely 
separated.  And,  as  the  Danube  in  the  past  has  served  as 
the  great  natural  route  for  the  migrations  of  nations  and  the 
warring  hordes  of  Asia  and  Europe,  so  it  is  now,  more  than 
ever  before,  one  of  the  world 's  great  highways  of  commerce 
and  industry,  and  from  present  indications  the  day  is  not 
far  distant  when,  economically,  it  will  be  the  greatest. 

The  reason  for  this  seemingly  paradoxical  assertion  is 
not  far  to  seek.  The  importance  of  rivers  is  not  due  to  their 
length  and  volume  of  water,  but  rather  to  the  density  of 
the  population  on  their  banks  and  to  the  industrial  pro- 
ductivity of  the  peoples  who  dwell  in  their  vicinity.  Thus, 
the  Danube  not  only  passes  through  some  of  the  most  fer- 
tile lands  in  the  world,  where  intensive  agriculture  is  car- 
ried to  the  highest  degree  of  efficiency,  but  also  facilitates 
the  exchange  of  commodities  of  all  kinds  between  distant 
nations  and  delivers  supplies  and  the  necessary  raw  ma- 
terial to  the  countless  industrial  centers  of  middle  Europe. 

Of  the  affluents  of  the  Danube  that  are  navigable,  or  large 
enough  to  float  rafts,  there  are  more  than  sixty,  while  the 
number  of  inhabitants  along  the  course  of  the  Danube  alone 
is  more  than  fifty  millions.  Add  to  this  the  myriads  of 
people  who  dwell  along  its  numerous  tributaries  and  this 
immense  number  will  be  greatly  augmented.  It  will  not 
only  far  exceed  the  number  of  people  who  live  along  the 


ON  THE  BEAUTIFUL  BLUE  DANUBE    33 

Volga  and  are  benefited  by  its  traffic,  but  will  also  far  sur- 
pass that  of  the  Mississippi  basin,  if  it  does  not  indeed 
equal  that  of  the  entire  United  States.  It  was  for  this 
reason  that  Napoleon  considered  the  Danube  the  king  of 
rivers  and  Talleyrand  declared  that  'Hhe  center  of  gravity 
is  not  Paris  nor  Berlin  but  the  Mouths  of  the  Danube."  " 

If  these  two  eminent  personages  were  now  living  they 
would  have  much  stronger  reasons  for  entertaining  such 
views  than  existed  a  century  ago.  For,  thanks  to  the  genius 
of  modern  engineers,  the  value  of  the  Danube  as  a  great 
commercial  highway  has  been  immensely  enhanced.  By 
dredging  the  canal  at  the  Iron  Gate,  by  jettying  the  Sulina 
branch  of  the  delta  and  by  making  innumerable  other  im- 
provements along  the  course  of  the  river,  the  European 
Danube  Commission,  which  has  had  charge  for  more  than 
half  a  century  of  the  betterment  of  this  great  international 
waterway,  has  eliminated  the  dangers  to  navigation  which, 
previously  existed  and  has  made  the  river  navigable  for 
much  larger  craft  than  was  before  possible.  Since  the  es- 
tablishment of  this  International  Commission  by  the  Treaty 
of  Paris  in  1856,  the  amount  of  traffic  passing  through  the 
mouth  of  the  Danube  has  increased  enormously.  According 
to  a  recent  official  report  of  the  Commission,  *  *  Sailing  Ships 
of  two  hundred  tons  register  have  given  way  to  steamers 
up  to  four  thousand  tons  register,  carrying  a  dead  weight 
of  nearly  eight  thousand  tons  and  good  order  has  succeeded 
chaos."" 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  far-reaching  utility  of  the  Danube 
has  been  greatly  augmented  by  the  construction  of  such 
canals  as  the  one  which  connects  it  with  the  Tisza,  and  still 
more  by  the  famous  Ludwig  Kanal  which  links  it  with  the 
Rhine.  It  was  a  matter  of  particular  pleasure  to  the  late 
King  Charles  of  Roumania  when  the  Roumanian  flotilla  of 
gunboats  was  able,  thanks  to  the  Ludwig  Kanal,  to  steam 


2<  Cf,  Le  Danube,  Apergu  historique,  iconomique  et  politique,  Chap.  II  (by 
C.  I.  Baicoianu,  Paris,  1917). 

25  See  Encyclopedia  Britannica  (11th  ed.). 


34   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

directly  from  London  to  the  Black  Sea  by  way  of  the  Rhine 
and  the  Danube. 

And  yet  more.  When  the  projected  Danube-Salonica 
Canal,  the  Danube-Elbe  and  the  Danube-Oder  Canals,  both 
under  construction,  shall  be  completed,  the  Danube  will  tap 
the  greatest  industrial  centers  of  middle  Europe  and  will 
reduce  by  one-half  the  trade  water  route  between  the  Suez 
Canal  and  the  ports  of  the  North  and  Baltic  Seas  as  com- 
pared with  the  present  water  route  by  way  of  Gibraltar.^* 

Recalling  the  days  when  the  Danube  was  controlled  by 
the  robber  barons  who  tenanted  the  massive  castles  along 
its  banks,  and  trade  was  all  but  paralyzed ;  when  Genoese 
and  Venetian  merchants  sailed  their  small  craft  down  its 
treacherous  waters  to  collect  grain  from  the  fertile  fields 
of  Wallachia  and  hides  and  furs  from  the  vast  plains  and 
forests  of  Russia ;  when  it  was  but  a  Turkish  River  as  the 
Black  Sea  was  but  a  Turkish  Lake,  we  can  better  appre- 
ciate its  various  phases  of  development  during  the  past  and 
more  fully  realize  the  vast  expansion  of  trade  which  it  has 
witnessed  since  its  navigation  was,  in  1856,  declared  to  be 
free  to  all  nations.  And  looking  forward  to  the  time  when 
all  the  numerous  artificial  waterways,  now  projected  or 
nearing  completion,  shall  extend  the  arms  of  the  Danube 
to  all  the  commercial  and  industrial  metropolises  of  Central 
Europe,  we  can  well  believe  that  historic  river  will  then, 
from  the  standpoint  of  international  trade,  be  not  only  the 
most  important  river  in  Europe,  but  also  the  most  impor- 
tant in  the  world.  Then,  indeed,  will  this  highway  of  com- 
merce be,  in  the  words  of  Napoleon,  the  king  of  rivers,  and 
then,  too,  will  be  verified  the  statement  of  Tallyrand,  if  it 
was  not  justified  when  he  made  it  a  century  ago,  *'Le  centre 
de  gravite  de  V Europe  n'est  pas  a  Paris,  ni  a  Berlin,  mais 
aux  B  ouches  du  Danube  J'  ^^ 

28  Cf.  The  Orient  Question,  Appendix  C  (by  Prince  Lazarovich-Hebeliano- 
vich,  New  York,  1913). 

27  Cf.  Baicoianu,  op.  cit.,  p.  14.  See  also  for  an  illuminating  discussion  of 
this  same  subject  La  Question  du  Danube,  Histoire  Politique  du  Bassin  du 
Danube;  Etudes  des  divers  regimes  applicables  ct  la  navigation  du  Danube 
(by  G.  Demorgny,  Paris,  1911). 


CHAPTER  n 

THE  EUXINE  AND  THE  BOSPHORUS  IN  STORY,  MYTH 

AND  LEGEND 

The  Pontic  Sea, 
Whose  icy  current  and  compulsive  course 
Ne'er  feels  retiring  ehh,  hut  keeps  due  course 
To  the  Propontis  and  the  Hellespont. 

Shakespeare  "  Othello. " 

Our  entrance  into  the  Black  Sea  was  through  the  well- 
jettied  Sulina  Canal — a  canal  which,  for  a  great  part  of  its 
length,  passes  through  a  reed-covered  lowland  which  is  so 
near  sea-level  that,  when  the  Danube  is  in  flood,  vast 
stretches  of  it  are  completely  under  water.  The  delta  of 
the  Danube,  which  has  an  area  of  about  one  thousand  square 
miles,  has  been  built  up  by  the  immense  accumulation  of 
mud  and  sand  which  has  been  brought  down  by  the  great 
river  and  its  numerous  aflSuents  from  the  rain-drenched 
Balkans  and  Carpathians  and  from  the  far-off  snow  fields 
of  the  Carnic  and  Rhaetian  Alps.  The  rate  at  which  the 
delta  is  encroaching  on  the  sea  may  be  judged  from  the  care- 
fully conducted  investigations  that  have  been  made,  which 
show  that  the  amount  of  earth  discharged  at  the  mouths  of 
the  Danube  totals  several  thousand  cubic  feet  a  minute. 
For  many  leagues  out  from  land  the  earth-colored  water 
of  the  Danube  is  easily  distinguished  from  that  of  the 
Euxine.  This  alone  enables  one  to  realize  the  extent  of 
the  erosion  going  on  in  the  Danube  basin  and  the  immensity 
of  the  deposit  that  is  daily  laid  on  this  part  of  the  bed  of 
the  Black  Sea. 

As  myth  and  legend  hover  over  the  Danube  from  its 
source  to  its  delta,  so  do  they  also  linger  along  the  western 
shore  of  the  historic  Euxine.  Even  before  we  have  left 
the  earth-colored  flood  which  pours  into  it,  we  descry  in  the 

36 


36       FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

distance  the  little  island  of  Fido-Nisi — Serpent  Island — so 
called  from  the  great  number  of  snakes  which  are  said  to 
infest  its  sea-lashed  cliffs  and  about  which,  from  time  im- 
memorial, Russian  and  Turkish  sailors  have  told  the  most 
fantastic  stories. 

In  antiquity  it  was  known  as  Leuce — 

"Leuce,  the  white,  where  the  souls  of  heroes  rest." 

According  to  Homer,  the  ashes  of  Achilles,  the  hero  of  the 
Iliad,  were  placed  in  a  golden  urn  and  deposited  in  a  tumu- 
lus on  the  promontory  of  Sigeum  in  the  Troad.  This  ele- 
vated headland,  visible  far  out  on  the  .^gean,  served  as  a 
landmark  for  passing  mariners.  Later  poets,  however,  in- 
form us  that  the  body  of  Achilles  was  snatched  from  the 
burning  pyre  by  Thetis,  his  goddess-mother,  and  trans- 
ferred to  the  Island  of  Leuce  where,  with  his  bosom  friend, 
Patroclus  and  other  heroes,^  it  was  speedily  worshipped 
by  the  Greeks  who  here  erected  a  temple  in  the  hero's 
honor.  For  this  reason  Leuce  was  long  known  as  the 
Island  of  Achilles. 

The  Greek  historian  Arrian  in  his  Periplus  of  the 
Euxine  Sea,  written  in  the  form  of  a  report  to  the  Em- 
peror Hadrian,  says: 

Some  call  this  the  Island  of  Achilles,  others  call  it  the 
chariot  of  Achilles,  and  others  Leuce,  from  its  color.  Thetis 
is  said  to  have  given  up  this  island  to  her  son  Achilles,  by 
whom  it  was  inhabited.  There  are  now  existing  a  temple 
and  a  wooden  statue  of  Achilles  of  ancient  workmanship. 
It  is  destitute  of  inhabitants  and  pastured  only  by  a  few 
goats  which  those  who  touch  here  are  said  to  offer  to  the 
memory  of  Achilles.  Many  offerings  are  suspended  in  this 
temple,  as  cups,  rings  and  more  valuable  gems.  All  these 
are  offerings  to  Achilles.  Inscriptions  are  also  suspended 
written  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages.  Some  are  in 
praise  of  Patroclus,  whom  those  who  are  disposed  to  honor 

1 A  venerable  legend  has  it  that  Achilles  met  here  the  shade  of  Helen  of 
Troy  whom  he  had  loved  in  life,  by  hearsay,  although  he  had  never  seen  her. 


THE  EUXINE  AND,  TPIE  BOSPHOEUS  37 

Achilles  treat  with  equal  respect.  Many  birds  inhabit  this 
island,  as  sea  gulls,  divers,  and  coots  innumerable.  These 
birds  frequent  the  temple  of  Achilles.  Every  day  in  the 
morning  they  take  their  flight  and,  having  moistened  their 
wings,  fly  back  again  to  the  temple  and  sprinkle  it  with  the 
moisture,  which  having  performed  they  brush  and  clean  the 
pavement  with  their  wings.  ...  It  is  said  that  Achilles 
has  appeared  in  time  of  sleep  both  to  those  who  have 
approached  the  coast  of  this  island  and  also  to  such  as 
have  been  sailing  a  short  distance  from  it  and  instructed 
them  where  the  island  was  most  safely  accessible  and  where 
the  ships  might  best  lie  at  anchor.  Th^y  also  say  further 
that  Achilles  has  appeared  to  them  not  in  time  of  sleep,  or 
a  dream,  but  in  a  visible  form  on  the  mast,  or  at  the  extrem- 
ity of  the  yards,  in  the  same  manner  as  the  Dioscuri  have 
appeared.  This  distinction,  however,  must  be  made  between 
the  appearance  of  Achilles  and  that  of  the  Dioscuri,  that 
the  latter  appear  evidently  and  clearly  to  persons  who 
navigate  the  sea  at  large,  and,  when  so  seen,  foretell  a 
prosperous  voyage,  whereas  the  figure  of  Achilles  is  seen 
only  by  such  as  approach  this  island.* 

A  short  sail  southwestwardly  from  the  island  of  Achilles 
brings  us  in  view,  on  our  starboard,  of  the  important  sea- 
port of  Constanza.  It  is  located  at  the  eastern  extremity 
of  Trajan's  wall  and  had  a  special  interest  for  me  because 
its  site  is  near  that  of  Tomi  to  which  the  poet  Ovid  was 
banished  by  the  Emperor  Augustus.  The  privations  which 
he  had  to  endure  on  this  distant  boundary  of  the  Roman 
Empire  and  the  miseries  of  his  life  among  the  barbarians 
on  the  shore  of  the  Euxine  are  graphically  described  by 
the  poet  in  his  Tristia  and  Letters  from  Pontus. 

The  climate  of  this  inhospitable  place  was  trying  indeed 
to  the  disconsolate  exile  who  had  just  come  from  the  palace 
of  the  Caesars  and  who  had  so  long  enjoyed  all  the  delights 
of  the  Roman  capital.    For  here,  to  his  eyes,  the  fields  were 

2  These  alleged  appearances  of  Achilles  and  the  Dioscuri,  referred  to  by 
Arrian,  were  evidently  the  lambent  electrical  discharges  known  as  St,  Elmo's 
Fires.  They  are  also  called  corposant,  Helena,  and,  when  in  pairs,  the 
PioBcuri — namely.  Castor  and  Pollux. 


38   FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

without  verdure,  the  spring  without  flowers,  and  snow  and 
ice  were  eternal.  The  long  hair  and  beards  which  concealed 
the  visage  of  the  rude  Sarmatians,  among  whom  he  was 
compelled  to  live,  clicked  with  icicles.  Wine  froze  and  had 
to  be  cut  with  a  sword.  According  to  Ovid's  account  the 
cold  was  more  severe  in  his  time  than  it  was  during  the 
memorable  arctic  winter  many  centuries  later  when  the 
temperature  fell  so  low  that  the  Euxine  was  frozen  over 
for  weeks  and  the  ice  on  the  Bosphorus  was  so  thick  that 
people  were  able  to  pass  on  foot  from  the  Asiatic  to  the 
European  shore. 

It  was  in  this  cheerless  and  frigid  region,  far  from  home 
and  friends,  that  one  of  Rome's  greatest  poets  spent  the 
last  eight  years  of  his  life  and  here  it  was  that  he  died. 
Before  his  death  he  had  expressed  a  wish  that  his  ashes, 
enclosed  in  a  modest  urn,  should  be  taken  to  Rome  in  order 
that  he  might  not  be  an  exile  after  death,  as  he  had  been 
during  so  many  years  of  his  life,  but  his  request  was  not 
granted.^  A  tradition  exists  that  a  tomb  was  erected  to  his 
memory  in  Tomi,  but  there  is  among  scholars  as  much 
doubt  respecting  the  existence,  or  location  of  such  a  tomb, 
as  there  always  has  been  regarding  the  reason  of  the  poet's 
banishment  by  one  who  had  showered  on  him  so  many  and 
so  great  favors. 

According  to  a  legend  that  Ovid  recalls  in  one  of  his 
elegies,  Tomi  was  a  place  of  ill  omen,  for  it  was  here  that 
Medea  murdered  her  brother  and  strewed  the  sea  with  his 
carved  limbs.  And  it  was  from  this  atrocious  fratricide, 
according  to  the  poet,  that  the  town  of  Tomi  took  its  name : 

Inde  Thomis  dictus  locus  hie,  quia  fertur  in  illo 
Membra  soror  frairis  consecuisse  sui* 

From  the  most  remote  antiquity  the  Euxine  has  been 
noted  for  the  fury  of  its  tempests  and  for  the  reputed  ter- 
rors of  its  navigation,  as  well  as  for  the  savage  character 

^Tristia,  Lib.  Ill,  Elegia,  III. 
iTristia,  Lib.  II,  Elegia,  IX. 


THE  EUXINE  AND  THE  BOSPHORUS  39 

of  the  inhabitants  on  its  coast.  For  this  reason  the  ancients 
called  it  Pontus  Axenus — the  inhospitable  sea.  Subse- 
quently, as  if  to  placate  its  fury,  by  an  euphemism,  it  was 
called  the  Euxine — the  hospitable  sea — a  name  which  it  has 
since  borne. 

But  the  first  name  given  to  this  extended  body  of  water 
was  simply  Pontos — the  Greek  word  for  sea — as  if  it  were 
the  sea  par  excellence.  The  noted  traveler,  Giovanni  da 
Piano  Carpini,  a  Franciscan  friar,  and  Ricoldo  da  Monte 
di  Croce,  a  Dominican  missionary  in  the  Orient,  called  it 
Mare  Magnum — the  great  sea.  In  the  Itinerarium,  how- 
ever, of  Blessed  Oderic  of  Pordenone  it  bears  the  name 
Mare  Majus — the  greater  sea — as  it  does  also  in  I  Viaggi 
of  Marco  Polo  who  calls  it  Mare  Maggiore.  But  this  is  not 
all.  Friar  Jordanus  speaks  of  it  as  the  Black  Sea — Mare 
Nigrum,  as  likewise  does  Sir  John  Mandeville  who  gives 
it  the  name  Mare  Maurum — Mauros,  in  Byzantine,  as  in 
Modern  Greek,  signifying  black.  But  there  was,  probably, 
no  better  reason  for  calling  this  sea  black  than  there  was 
for  giving  to  certain  other  well-known  seas  the  epithets  of 
red,  white,  and  yellow.  From  all  this  it  appears  that  what 
we  now  know  as  the  Euxine  or  Black  Sea  has  been  rich  in 
names  as  well  as  in  myths  and  legends.' 

The  Euxine,  however,  is  famed  not  only  for  legendary 
associations  but  for  having  been  for  centuries  a  section  of 
the  great  highway  between  the  Occident  and  the  Orient.  It 
was  by  this  route  that  Fra  Oderic  of  Pordenone,  that  cele- 
brated missionary  of  the  fourteenth  century,  made  his  won- 
derful journey  from  Venice  to  China  and  other  parts  of  the 
Far  East.  It  was  by  the  same  route  that  Marco  Polo — 
the  most  famous  traveler  of  the  Middle  Ages — returned 
from  his  long  peregrinations  in  eastern  Asia  to  his  home 
in  the  Queen  City  of  the  Adriatic.  And  it  was  by  way  of 
the  Euxine  that  Marco  Polo's  father  and  uncle  had  pre- 


»  For  the  various  names  of  the  Euxine  or  Black  Sea,  cf.  The  Book  of  Ser 
Marco  Polo,  Vol.  I,  p.  3  (trans,  by  H.  Yule,  London,  1903) ;  Cathay  and  The 
Way  Thither,  Vol.  II,  p.  98  (printed  for  the  Hakluyt  Society,  London,  1913). 


40   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

ceded  him  to  far-off  Cathay  where  they  were  most  cordially 
received  by  the  famous  Kublai  Khan. 

It  was  also  for  ages  an  important  link  in  one  of  the 
world's  great  commercial  highways.  From  time  immemo- 
rial there  were  three  great  trade  routes  which  connected 
India  and  China  with  Europe.  One  was  the  Persian  Gulf 
route  which  ran  from  the  mouth  of  the  Indus  to  the  Eu- 
phrates and  along  this  latter  river  to  Zeugma,  or  Thap- 
sacus,  whence  it  proceeded  to  Antioch  and  other  ports 
of  the  eastern  Mediterranean.  The  second  was  the  sea 
route  which  went  from  India  along  the  Persian  and  Arabian 
coasts  to  Aden,  thence  by  the  Red  Sea  to  Alexandria  and 
Tyre  and  Sidon.  The  third  was  the  great  overland  route 
which  started  from  Bactra — ^long,  like  Babylon,  a  market- 
place for  the  races  of  the  world  and  a  great  emporium 
for  Indian  and  Chinese  commerce — and  reached  the  West 
by  two  roads.  One  was  the  caravan  route  which  crossed 
Parthia  and  Mesopotamia  and  ended  in  Antioch.  The 
other  passed  down  the  river  Oxus  to  the  Caspian  Sea  and 
thence  to  the  Euxine.  This  is  the  trade  route  that  has  the 
greatest  interest  for  us  at  present — a  route  that  served  as 
one  of  the  world's  chief  commercial  highways  for  more 
than  two  thousand  years. 

Long  before  Alexander  made  Bactra  his  base  for  the  in- 
vasion of  India,  long  before  the  Greek  Skylax  of  Karyanda 
made  his  famous  voyage  from  the  mouth  of  the  Indus  to 
Arsinoe  on  the  Red  Sea,  and  many  centuries  before  Hip- 
palus  made  his  epoch-making  discovery  of  the  existence  of 
the  moonstones  of  the  Indian  Ocean,  which  immensely  aug- 
mented the  ocean-bound  traffic  between  India  and  Egypt, 
a  very  large  volume  of  the  luxuries  of  the  Far  East  found 
their  way  to  the  Occident  by  the  great  Oxus-Caspian-Euxine 
trade  route.    And  while  the  ships  of  Tarshish  and 

Quinquiremes  of  Nineveh  from  distant  Ophir, 
Bowing  home  to  haven  in  sunny  Palestine, 
With  cargoes  of  ivory  and  apes  and  peacocks, 
Sandalwood,  cedarwood  and  sweet,  white  wine, 


THE  EUXINE  AND  THE  BOSPHORUS  41 

were  bringing  to  Syria  and  the  Land  of  the  Pharaohs  treas- 
ures from  the  coast  of  Malabar  and 

The  spicy  shore 
Of  Araby   the   blest, 

interminable  caravans  and  countless  merchantmen  were 
always  busy  along  the  Oxus-Caspian-Euxine  route  bear- 
ing to  Byzantium  and  Athens  and  Rome  silks  from  China 
and  Bengal;  muslin  and  other  stuffs  from  Benares  and 
Kotumbara;  tortoise-shell  from  the  Golden  Chersonese; 
indigo  from  Sind;  drugs,  spices,  cosmetics,  perfumes, 
pearls,  beryls,  and  precious  stones  from  other  parts; 
costus  from  Cashmere;  pepper  from  Malabar;  gums, 
spikenard,  lycium,  and  malabathrum  from  the  forests  of 
the  Himalayas;  and  sapphires,  rubies,  and  aquamarines 
from  Burma,  Siam,  and  Vaniyambadi. 

"What  was  the  volume  of  this  trade  between  the  Orient 
and  the  Occident,  especially  after  the  establishment  of  the 
Pax  Romana  under  Augustus,  may  be  gauged  by  the  fact 
that  the  unprecedented  demand  by  the  fashionable  world 
of  Rome  for  all  kinds  of  eastern  luxuries  for  a  while  seri- 
ously imperiled  the  imperial  finances.  In  the  single  item 
of  aromatics  for  funerals,  the  extravagance  indulged  in 
seems  incredible.  At  the  obsequies  of  Sulla,  before  the 
time  of  Augustus,  more  than  twelve  thousand  pounds  of 
precious  spices  were  consumed,  while  Nero  had  more  expen- 
sive aromatics  burnt  on  the  funeral  pyre  of  Poppoea  than 
Arabia  produced  in  a  year. 

When,  after  the  destruction  of  Bagdad  by  Hulaku  Khan, 
Tabriz  in  Persia  became  the  great  political  and  commercial 
city  of  Asia,  it  was  by  the  Euxine  that  the  merchant  princes 
of  Venice  and  Genoa  conducted  their  commerce  with  the 
Middle  and  Far  East.  Passing  through  the  Hellespont 
and  the  Bosphorus,  their  galleys  proceeded  to  Kaffa  in  the 
Crimea  which  was  their  chief  entrepot  on  the  Euxine.  From 
this  point  the  enterprising  traders  continued  their  course 
by  way  of  the  Sea  of  Azov,  the  Don,  and  the  Volga  to  a  port 


42   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

on  the  Caspian  Sea.  Thence  their  caravans  started  on 
their  long  overland  journey  over  lofty  mountains  and 
through  vast  deserts  and  hostile  nations  to  far  distant 
Cathay  in  quest  of  the  highly-prized  commodities  of  Chi- 
nese kilns  and  looms.  Other  traders  went  directly  by  sea 
from  Kaffa  to  Trebizond  whence  they  journeyed  over 
broad,  arid  plains  to  Tabriz.  Here  their  numerous  cara- 
vans were  laden  with  the  rich  fabrics  of  Persia  and  the  rare 
products  of  India  and  the  Isles  of  Spicery.  From  these 
centers  of  Asiatic  traffic,  long  lines  of  patient  camels  trans- 
ported their  precious  burdens  to  ports  on  the  Euxine  where 
a  fleet  of  Genoese  and  Venetian  galleys  was  waiting  to  re- 
ceive the  merchandise  collected  at  so  much  risk  and  at  the 
cost  of  so  much  labor  and  which  was  subsequently  dis- 
tributed among  the  expectant  marts  of  southern  Europe.* 
Before  embarking  at  Sulina  for  Constantinople,  I  almost 
dreaded  the  voyage  to  the  Bosphorus.  From  the  time  of 
the  Argonauts  the  tempestuous  Euxine  has  been  a  byword 
among  mariners  and  the  dread  of  travelers  who  have  to 
trust  themselves  to  its  storm-lashed  waves.  In  the  words 
of  Ovid  its  fury  was  inferior  only  to  the  turbulence  of  the 

6  So  paramount  from  the  twelfth  to  the  fifteenth  century  was  the  commerce 
of  Genoa  and  Venice  that  an  Italian  writer  does  not  hesitate  to  declare  that, 
"during  four  centuries,  the  Genoese  and  Venetians  were  the  arbiters  of  the 
destinies  of  Europe;  that  they  alone  thronged  the  trade-routes  of  Asia  and 
Africa;  that  they  alone  controlled  the  commerce  of  these  continents;  that  they 
alone  civilized  their  barbarous  inhabitants  and  dispelled  the  darkness  of  the 
Middle  Ages."  Nuova  Istoria  della  Repuhbhca  di  Genova,  del  8uo  Commercio  e 
della  Sua  Letteratura  dalle  Origini  all'  Anno  1797,  Vol.  I,  p.  7  (by  Michel- 
Giuseppe  Canale,  Florence,  1858). 

In  marked  contrast  to  this  division  of  the  commerce  of  the  world  between 
Genoa  and  Venice,  the  Venetian  author,  Fabio  Mutinelli,  would  claim  a  mer- 
cantile monopoly  for  his  countrymen.  "To  them  alone,"  he  writes,  "are  earth 
and  sea  equally  open;  they  alone  are  the  channel  of  all  the  riches  and  the 
furnishers  of  all  the  world  which  poured  into  their  hands  all  the  money  which 
it  possessed."    Del  Commercio  dei  Veneziani,  p.  126   (Venice,  1835). 

For  interesting  accounts  of  the  Euxine  trade  routes  during  the  period  in 
question  the  reader  may  consult  with  profit  Histoire  du  Commerce  de  la  Mer 
Noire  (by  Elie  de  la  Primaudaie)  ;  Le  Danube,  Chap.  II  (by  C.  I.  Baicoianu, 
Paris,  1917)  ;  Intercourse  Betioeen  India  and  the  Western  World  from  the 
Earliest  Times  to  the  Fall  of  Rome  (by  H.  G.  Rawlinson,  Cambridge,  Eng- 
land, 1916)  ;  Travels  of  Marco  Polo,  Vol.  I,  Bk.  I,  Chap.  IX  (by  Henry  Yule, 
London,  1903).  This  masterly  work  is  specially  valuable  for  its  numerous 
maps  indicating  the  routes  of  Marco  Polo,  as  well  as  those  of  the  elder  Polos 
through  Asia.  See  also  Geschiohte  des  Levante-handels  im  Mittelalter,  Vol.  II, 
pp.  76,  78,  158  ff.  (by  Wilhelm  Heyd,  Stuttgart,  1879). 


THE  EUXINE  AND  THE  BOSPHORUS    43 

fierce  barbarians  among  whom  he  was  exiled.  I  had  pre- 
pared myself  to  endure  for  a  day  all  the  horrors  which 
characterize  a  rough  passage  across  the  English  channel. 
Nor  were  my  fears  entirely  groundless.  The  sea  was  heavy, 
—the  weather  was  squally.  Many  of  the  passengers,  un- 
willing to  trust  themselves  on  deck,  sought  the  seclusion 
of  their  staterooms.  As  for  myself,  I  did  not  feel  reas- 
sured until  we  had  finally  entered  the  more  protected  waters 
of  the  Bosphorus.  Even  at  the  entrance  of  this  famous 
channel  the  voyager  may,  at  times,  experience  great  dis- 
comfort. Byron  states  the  reason  in  the  well-known  stanza 
of  Don  Juan : 

The  wind  swept  down  the  Euxine,  and  the  wave 

Broke  foaming  o'er  the  blue  Symplegades; 
*Tis  a  grand  sight  from  off  "The  Giant's  grave** 

To  watch  the  progress  of  those  rolling  seas 
Between  the  Bosphorus,  as  they  lash  and  lave 

Europe  and  Asia,  you  being  quite  at  ease; 
There's  not  a  sea  .  .  .  .  , 

Turns  up  more  dangerous  breakers  than  the  EuxineJ 

Inter  uirumque  fremunt  immani  turbine  venti. 

Nescit  cui  domino  pareat,  unda  maria. 
Nam  modo  purpurea  vires  capit  Eurus  ab  oriu; 

Nunc  Zephyrus,  sero  vespere  missus,  adesi; 
Nunc  gelidus  sicca  Boreas  bacchaiur  ab  Arcto; 

Nunc  Notus  adversa  praelia  front e  gerit. 

Trisiia,  lib.  L,  Elegia  II. 

The  "blue  Symplegades," — at  least  what  is  left  of  them 
— to  which  Byron  here  refers,  are  famous  for  their  con- 
nection with  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  interesting  of  Greek 
legends — that  of  the  Argonauts.  According  to  the  story 
which  ApoUonius  of  Rhodes  has  so  well  developed  in  his 
Argonautica,  the  Symplegades  were  two  floating  and  ever- 
clashing  rocks,  at  the  junction  of  the  Euxine  and  the  Bos- 

7  Canto  V,  strophe  v.  Compare  Byron's  graphic  description  of  a  storm  on 
the  Euxine  with  that  given  by  Ovid  in  which  he  vividly  portrays  the  struggling 
winds  as  they  furiously  rush  against  one  another  from  all  points  of  the 
compass : 


44       FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

phorus,  which  were  fabled  to  close  upon  and  crush  all  ships 
that  attempted  to  pass  between  them.  When  Jason  with 
his  fifty-oared  ship,  the  Argos,  and  his  fifty  heroes  set  out 
for  Colchis  to  fetch  back  the  golden  fleece  he  was  obliged  to 
pass  between  these  great  colliding  rocks.  Thanks,  how- 
ever, to  the  instructions  he  had  received  from  the  seer, 
Phineus,  who  had  been  delivered  from  the  tormenting 
Harpies  by  two  of  the  Argonauts,  he  was  able  to  effect  this 
hitherto  impossible  passage  and  to  proceed  without  inter- 
ruption to  his  destination. 

After  this  event  the  eyotlike  rocks  became  fixed  in  the 
positions  they  now  occupy.  The  one,  however,  on  the  Asi- 
atic side  of  the  Bosphorus  has,  owing  to  the  action  of  the 
elements,  long  since  disappeared  beneath  the  waves.  The 
other,  on  the  European  side,  is  also  rapidly  disintegrating, 
and  soon  will  litter  the  floor  of  the  sea.  But  the  story  of 
the  Argonauts  and  the  Golden  Fleece  will  endure  as  long 
as  men  shall  retain  a  love  for  the  fascinating  in  myth  and 
legend  and  the  beautiful  in  art  and  literature. 

Although  the  Cyanean  Islands — as  the  Symplegades  are 
now  called — and  the  shores  of  the  Euxine  are  exceptionally 
rich  in  places  and  things  of  great  historic  and  mythological 
interest,  they  are  in  this  respect  surpassed  by  the  Bos- 
phorus. Nowhere  in  the  world  do  myth  and  legend,  tradi- 
tional associations  and  historic  souvenirs  cluster  in  such 
numbers  and  varieties  as  they  do  about  every  rock  and 
bay  and  promontory  of  this  famous  waterway  that  con- 
nects the  Euxine  with  the  Sea  of  Marmora. 

Even  the  names  bestowed  upon  this  channel  have  been 
manifold.  To  the  ancients  it  was  variously  known  as  the 
Mouth,  the  Throat,  the  Door,  and  the  Key  of  the  Euxine. 
To-day  it  is  frequently  called  the  Narrows,  or  the  Strait 
or  the  Canal  of  Constantinople.  But  the  appellation  which 
is  still  the  most  popular  and  that  by  which  it  is  usually 
designated  is  that  which  has  its  origin  in  one  of  the  earliest 
of  Greek  legends.  As  expressed  ia  English,  the  name, 
which  signifies  Cow-Ford,  or  Ox-Ford,  seems  very  prosaic, 


THE  EUXINE  AND  THE  BOSPHORUS  45 

but  the  legend  on  which  it  is  based  has  always  been  a  favor- 
ite with  poets  and  artists. 

lo,  the  beautiful  priestess  of  Hera  at  Argos,  was  loved 
by  Zeus  and  was,  in  consequence  of  the  jealousy  of  the 
goddess,  metamorphosed  into  a  heifer.  Arriving  at  the 
eastern  side  of  the  strait,  so  the  fable  runs,  she  plunged 
into  its  swiftly-flowing  waters  and  swam  to  the  European 
shore.  And  from  that  time  to  the  present,  this  famed 
watercourse  has  been  known  the  world  over  as  the  Bos- 
phorus. 

On  the  promontory  of  Anadoli  Kavak  on  the  Asiatic  side 
of  the  Bosphorus,  we  get  a  view  of  the  site  of  Hieron  whidh 
was  long  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  sacred  places  in  the 
pagan  world.  Covered  then  with  gorgeous  temples  dedi- 
cated to  the  twelve  greater  gods  it  ranked  as  a  place  of 
pilgrimage  with  Delphi  and  Olympia.  The  most  imposing 
and  sumptuous  of  these  temples  was  said  to  have  been 
founded  by  Jason  and  consecrated  to  Zeus  Urius,  in  thanks- 
giving for  the  safe  return  of  himself  and  his  fellow  Argo- 
nauts from  their  successful  expedition  to  Colchis.  "Within 
it  stood  a  priceless  statue  of  Zeus  made  of  ivory  and  gold, 
at  the  base  of  which  was  a  slab,  now  preserved  in  the  British 
Museum,  on  which  were  inscribed  the  words: 

The  sailor  who  invokes  Zeus  Urius  that  he  may  enjoy  a 
prosperous  voyage  either  toward  the  Cyanean  Eocks,  or 
on  the  -(Egean  sea,  itself  unsteady  and  filled  with  innumer- 
able dangerous  shoals  scattered  here  and  there,  can  have  a 
prosperous  voyage  if  first  he  sacrifices  to  the  god  whose 
statue  Philo  Antipater  has  set  up,  both  because  of  gratitude 
and  to  insure  favorable  augury  to  sailors. 

But  unlike  Delphi  and  Olympia  where  there  is  still, 
thanks  to  the  labors  of  French  and  German  archseologists, 
very  much  to  remind  one  of  the  past  grandeur  of  these  his- 
toric places,  **not  a  stone  upon  a  stone"  remains  on  the  site 
of  Hieron  to  attest  to  its  former  splendor  and  majesty.  As 
in  so  many  other  parts  of  the  world,  the  temples  of  Hieron 


46   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

served  as  quarries  for  peoples  of  a  later  age  who  knew  not 
the  gods  of  Olympus,  or  who  had  a  special  interest  in  con- 
signing them  to  oblivion.  And  where,  in  days  of  yore,  the 
clouds  of  incense  and  the  smoke  of  sacrifice,  in  the  most 
superb  of  temples  stimulated  the  fervor  of  vast  multitudes 
from  far  distant  lands,  the  traveler  to-day  finds  nothing  of 
the  pristine  glory  of  Hieron  except  what  nature  gave  it — 
its  superb  site  and  its  enchanting  vistas  of  the  Bosphorus 
and  the  Euxine. 

After  the  fall  of  paganism,  Hieron  had  many  vicissitudes. 
Having  been  converted  into  one  of  the  strongest  fortresses 
on  the  Bosphorus,  it  was  time  and  again  singled  out  for 
attack  by  the  enemies  of  the  Byzantine  Empire.  Among 
the  most  celebrated  of  them  was  Harun-al-Rashid  who  led 
an  army  the  whole  way  from  Bagdad  with  a  view  of  effect- 
ing the  conquest  of  Constantinople  and  with  it  of  the  Byzan- 
tine Empire.  At  a  later  date  Hieron  and  the  stronghold 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Strait  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
Genoese.  Not  long  afterwards  it  was  captured  by  the 
Sultan  Bayazid  I,  *'the  Thunderbolt,"  and  since  then  it  has 
been  in  the  possession  of  the  Turks. 

A  short  distance  to  the  southwest,  on  the  European  shore, 
is  a  beautiful  valley  where  the  Crusaders  are  said  to  have 
encamped  on  their  way  to  the  Holy  Land.  A  colossal  plane 
tree  is  here  seen  which  bears  the  name  of  "Plane  tree  of 
Godfrey  of  Bouillon,"  from  a  tradition  that  it  was  planted 
by  this  famous  hero  of  the  Christian  host. 

At  Roumeli  Hissar,  we  reach  the  narrowest  point  of  the 
Bosphorus  and  one  which  is  most  rich  in  historical  associa- 
tions. According  to  tradition,  it  was  here  that  Xenophon 
and  his  immortal  Ten  Thousand  crossed  over  into  Europe 
after  their  famous  retreat  from  the  heart  of  Babylonia — 
a  retreat  which,  revealing,  as  it  did,  the  military  weakness 
of  the  Persian  Colossus,  paved  the  way  for  the  victories 
of  the  Granicus,  the  Issus,  and  Arbela  and  for  the  conquest 
of  Asia  by  Alexander  the  Great. 

Here,  too,  it  was  that  Mandrocles  of  Samos  constructed 


THE  EUXINE  AND  THE  BOSPHORUS    47 

the  bridge  of  boats  that  enabled  the  vast  Persian  army 
Tinder  Darius  to  cross  into  Europe  at  the  time  of  that 
monarch's  disastrous  campaign  against  the  Scythians. 
Mandrocles  was  so  elated  by  his  achievement  that  he  had 
it  commemorated  in  the  temple  of  Hera,  in  his  native 
Samos,  by  a  picture  with  the  inscription: 

The  fish-fraught  Bosphorus  hridged,  to  Juno's  fane 
Did  Mandrocles  this  proud  memorial  bring; 
When  for  himself  a  crown  he'd  skill  to  gain, 
For  Samos  praise,  contenting  the  Great'  King. 

But  a  large  volum*e  would  be  required  to  give  even  a  brief 
notice  of  the  countless  myths,  legends,  traditions,  and  his- 
torical souvenirs  which  cluster  about  the  shores  of  the  Bos- 
phorus from  the  Euxine  to  the  Golden  Horn.  They  have 
been  the  scenes  of  tragedies  and  romances  and  intrigues 
without  number.  From  the  dawn  of  history  the  Bosphorus 
has  been  constantly  a  bone  of  contention  among  rival  and 
conflicting  interests  and  an  important  factor  in  many  of 
the  great  wars  that  have  convulsed  Asia  and  Europe.  And 
until  a  plan  shall  be  elaborated  for  eliminating  international 
jealousies  and  harmonizing  the  antagonistic  policies  and 
aspirations  of  many  peoples  of  divers  races  and  creeds,  it 
is  not  probable  that  the  future  history  of  this  unique  water- 
way will  be  materially  different  from  that  of  the  past. 
Altruism  among  nations  has  so  far  been  confined  to  words 
and,  from  present  indications,  the  day  is  far  distant  when 
it  will  be  revealed  in  deeds. 

It  is  not,  however,  through  its  legendary  and  storied 
past  that  the  Bosphorus  makes  its  strongest  appeal  to  the 
ordinary  traveler.  It  is  rather  through  its  scenic  beauty — 
the  enchanting  vistas  it  everywhere  offers  on  both  the  Asi- 
atic and  the  European  shore.  These  have  for  ages  been 
celebrated  in  song  and  story  and  few  who  have  been  privi- 
leged to  gaze  on  them  will  say  that  their  praises  have  been 
exaggerated.    From  whatever  point  the  Strait  is  viewed  it 


48   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

is  picturesque  in  the  highest  degree  and  exhibits  all  along 
its  course  countless  objects  of  exhaustless  interest. 

Almost  the  entire  distance  from  the  Euxine  to  the  Golden 
Horn  one  sees  bordering  the  Bosphorus  an  almost  con- 
tinuous succession  of  kiosks,  palaces,  chalets,  bungalows, 
mosques,  and  minarets.  There  are  the  imposing  homes  of 
ambassadors  accredited  to  the  Sublime  Porte,  the  luxuri- 
ous residences  of  the  wealthy  pashas  and  merchant  princes 
of  Stamboul,  the  superb  marble  palaces  of  sultans  and  sul- 
tanas, all  surrounded  by  inviting  groves  and  artistically 
laid-out  parks  rich  in  flowers  and  trees  from  many  climes. 
Here  and  there  in  shaded  glens  and  verdant  dales  are  pic- 
turesque villages  and  hamlets  whose  quaint  wooden  houses 
form  a  striking  contrast  to  the  magnificent  structures  which 
are  in  their  immediate  vicinity. 

Of  the  many  beautiful  valleys  that  debouch  into  the  Bos- 
phorus is  that  of  the  Great  Geuk  Su — Sweet  Water — on  the 
Asiatic  side  which  appealed  to  me  most  strongly.  Its 
clumps  of  balmy  pines,  somber  cypresses,  and  graceful 
mimosas  and  its  romantic  groves  of  wide-spreading  planes, 
sycamores,  magnolias,  and  beech  trees  whose  pendent 
branches  dip  into  the  crystal  stream  present  rarest  pic- 
tures of  sylvan  charm  and  loveliness.  They  forcibly  re- 
minded me  of  similar  spots  of  scenic  beauty  which,  years 
before,  had  so  fascinated  me  in  the  far-famed  Vale  of 
Tempe  in  northern  Thessaly.  Emptying  into  the  same  bay 
as  the  Great  Sweet  Water  is  the  Little  Sweet  Water  and 
the  valleys  of  these  two  enchanting  streams  together  with 
their  common  bay  constitute  the  so-called  *  *  Sweet  Waters  of 
Asia.*'^  Their  attractive  groves  and  greenswards  have 
long  been  a  favorite  pleasance  for  Ottomans  and  Greeks  as 
well  as  for  foreign  residents  of  Constantinople. 

But  what  most  interested  me  in  this  heart-gladdening 
spot  was  the  countless  groups  of  merry  and  beautiful  chil- 

8  The  Sweet  Waters  of  Asia  and  the  Sweet  Waters  of  Europe  on  the  Upper 
reaches  of  the  Golden  Horn  are  so  called  in  contradistinction  to  the  salt  waters 
of  the  Bosphorus. 


THE  EUXINE  AND  THE  BOSPHORUS  49 

dren  who  had  been  brought  here  by  their  mothers  and 
nurses  for  an  outing.  They  seemed  to  be  everywhere. 
Running  and  leaping,  laughing  and  shouting,  singing  and 
dancing,  vanishing  among  the  bushes  and  suddenly  re- 
appearing in  the  broad  greensward,  their  little  forms  were 
perfect  pictures  of  restless  energy  and  unalloyed  happi- 
ness. Many  of  the  boys  and  girls  were  dressed  like  children 
one  sees  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  and  their  features  were 
just  as  fair.  Nowhere  in  the  East  did  I  see  a  more  ani- 
mated or  a  more  charming  scene  except,  perhaps,  on  the 
embowered  banks  of  the  Sweet  Waters  of  Europe  on  the 
upper  reaches  of  the  Golden  Horn. 

And  the  mothers  seemed  to  enjoy  themselves  fully  as 
much  as  their  children.  Some  sat  quietly  conversing  under 
the  umbrageous  trees  while  others  were  enjoying  a  pleasant 
row  in  their  light  and  gaily  decked  caiques.  Most  of  them 
were  garbed  in  the  tcharchaff,  a  cloak  and  veil  of  somber 
color,  but  a  few  still  retained  the  graceful  feridgi  and 
yashmak  which  were  formerly  in  almost  universal  use 
among  the  Ottoman  women  of  the  well-to-do  classes. 

To  eastern  poets  the  Sweet  Waters  of  Asia  are  quite  as 
dear  as  was  the  Vale  of  Tempe  to  the  ancient  Greeks.  For 
to  the  poets  of  the  East  this  spot  is  a  veritable  paradise  on 
earth  and  far  surpasses  the  vaunted  attractions  of  the 
celebrated  groves  of  Damascus  and  the  sun-kissed  mead- 
ows of  Shaab  Beram  in  Southern  Persia.  It  supplies,  in 
fullest  measure,  three  of  the  Moslem's  chief  est  delights — 
umbrageous  trees,  flowing  water,  and  sweet  repose. 

The  poet  must  have  had  some  such  an  enchanting  spot 
in  mind  when  he  sang : 

The  land  of  the  cedar  and  the  vine, 
Where  the  flowers  ever  blossom,  the  beams  ever  shine; 

Where  citron  and  olive  are  fairest  of  fruit. 
And  the  voice  of  the  nightingale  never  is  mute; 

Where  the  tints  of  the  earth  and  the  hues  of  the  sky, 
In  color  though  varied  in  beauty  may  vie. 


50       FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Space  precludes  more  than  a  passing  reference  to  the 
sumptuous  palaces  which  adorn  the  bay-indented  shores  of 
the  Bosphorus.  Of  these  magnificent  edifices  Yildiz  Kiosk 
— Palace  of  the  Star — is  noted  as  having  been  the  favorite 
place  of  residence  of  the  Sultan  Abdul-Hamid  11.  It  is  a 
large  structure  of  white  marble  and  from  its  commanding 
site  on  a  grove-clad  hill  it  affords  one  of  the  most  gorgeous 
panoramas  to  be  seen  anywhere  along  the  matchless  Bos- 
phorus. 

At  the  foot  of  the  hill  on  which  stands  the  palace  of 
Yildiz  Kiosk  is  seen  what  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most 
grandiose  palaces  in  the  world.  It  is  known  as  the  Serai 
of  Dolma  Baghtcheh  and  was  built  by  the  Sultan  Abdul- 
Medjid.  His  Armenian  architect,  Balian,  was  given  carte 
hlanche  in  the  matter  of  expenditure  and  style  of  archi- 
tecture. Only  one  condition  was  imposed  on  him  by  the 
Sultan  and  that  was  that  the  completed  structure  should 
surpass  in  magnificence  every  other  imperial  palace  in  the 
world.  Architecturally  it  is  a  strange  combination  of 
Greek,  Roman,  Moorish,  Turkish,  Persian,  and  Renaissance 
styles  and  exhibits  both  interiorly  and  exteriorly  what  is 
most  admirable  in  the  noted  palaces  of  the  Louvre,  Ver- 
sailles, the  Schonbrunn  in  Vienna,  the  Winter  Palace  in 
Petrograd,  and  the  imperial  palace  of  the  Kremlin  in  Mos- 
cow. "With  the  Ionian-blue  Bosphorus  as  a  foreground 
and  the  Imperial  Park  clad  in  perennial  green  as  a  back- 
ground the  snow-white  palace  of  Dolma  Baghtcheh,  with 
its  delicate  lace-like  carvings,  is,  indeed,  in  the  words  of 
an  enthusiastic  writer, '  *  a  pearl  placed  between  a  turquoise 
and  an  emerald,  each  jewel  multiplied  in  size  and  loveliness 
many  million-fold. ' '  ^ 

8  Constantinople,  Vol.  I,  p.  136  (by  E.  A.  Grosvenor,  Boston,  1895). 


CHAPTER  III 

ROMA  NOVA 

The  City  of  the  Constantines, 
The  rising  city  of  the  hillow-side, 
The  City  of  the  Cross — great  ocean* s  hride, 
Crowned  with  her  hirth  she  sprung  long  ages  past. 
And  still  she  looked  in  glory  o*er  the  tide 
Which  at  her  feet  iarharic  riches  cast, 
Pour'd  hy  the  turning  East,  all  joyously  and  fast. 

Our  journey  through  the  park  and  palace-fringed  Bos- 
phorus  had  duly  prepared  us  for  the  culmination  of  these 
beauties  and  wonders,  when,  as  we  neared  Seraglio  Point, 
the  Imperial  Capital  of  the  Byzantine  Caesars  burst  upon 
our  view  in  all  its  glory  and  magnificence. 

From  the  time  of  Tournef  ort  travelers  have  vied  with  one 
another  in  their  attempts  to  convey  in  words  their  impres- 
sions on  their  first  view  of  the  superb  capital  of  the  Otto- 
man Empire.  Poets  and  artists  have  essayed  to  depict 
the  splendors  of  what  they  regarded  as  the  queen  city  of 
the  world.  There  are  pen-pictures  of  innumerable  writ- 
ers who  came  under  the  spell  of  this  city  of  the  Caesars  and 
who  were  unable  to  find  language  which  would  adequately 
express  their  sensations  of  ecstatic  trance  and  rapturous 
delight.  Lamartine,  Chateaubriand,  Edmondo  De  Amicis, 
Gautier,  Gerard  de  Nerval,  Edmond  About,  the  Countess 
de  Gasparm,  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague,  Robert 
Hichens,  and  Pierre  Loti  all  are  overcome  with  wonder  at 
the  marvelous  spectacle  and  despair  of  finding  language  to 
express  their  surprise  and  emotion  in  the  presence  of  such 
an  enchanting  spot. 

It  is  at  Constantinople  [writes  Lamartine],  that  God  and 
man,  nature  and  art  have  created  and  placed  the  most  mar- 


52   FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

velous  point  of  view  which  the  human  eye  can  contemplate 
on  earth.* 

Chateaubriand  expresses  ahnost  the  same  sentiment  when 
he  declares  *'0n  n'  exagere  point  quand  on  dit  que  Con- 
stantinople off  re  le  plus  beau  point  de  vue  de  Vunivers.*'^ 
But  notwithstanding  this  almost  extravagant  statement,  the 
distinguished  litterateur  does  not  hesitate  to  add  in  a  foot- 
note, *'I,  however,  prefer  the  bay  of  Naples." 

Like  Lamartine  and  Chauteaubriand,  I,  too,  was  greatly 
impressed  by  my  first  view  of  Constantinople  when  seen 
from  the  deck  of  our  steamer  as  it  glided  towards  the  mast- 
thronged  harbor  of  the  Golden  Horn,  but,  as  I  have  stated 
elsewhere,®  the  prize,  for  the  World's  City  Beautiful,  must, 
me  judice,  be  awarded  to  Rio  de  Janeiro,  the  incomparable 
capital  of  Brazil. 

It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  chapter  to  give  even  a 
brief  description  of  Constantinople.  That  is  rendered 
quite  unnecessary  by  the  scores  of  valuable  books  which 
have  been  written  on  this  fascinating  subject.  This,  how- 
ever, does  not  mean  that  I  was  not  intensely  interested  in 
its  countless  attractions  or  that  they  did  not  make  deep 
impressions  on  me  and  give  rise  to  serious  reflections.  Far 
from  it.  I  spent  every  available  hour  in  visiting  its 
churches,  mosques,  schools,  museums  and  in  contemplat- 
ing its  hoary,  lichen-covered  ruins,  its  battlemented  walls 
and  ivy-festooned  towers  which,  for  long  ages,  cast  their 

1  Among  the  Ottomans  and  other  eastern  peoples  the  capital  of  Turkey  is 
usually  known  as  Stamboul,  or  Istamboul,  a  corruption  of  Constantinople.  It 
is  also  called  Constantineh.  Frequently  it  is  referred  to  as  Roma  Nova — New 
Rome.  In  the  official  documents  of  the  Greek  Patriarch  this  name  is  still  re- 
tained. The  Slavs  love  to  speak  of  it  as  Tsargrad — the  Castle  of  Caesar.  To 
Mohammedan  poets,  who  are  prodigal  in  the  epithets  which  they  apply  to  it, 
it  is  the  City  of  Islam,  the  Portal  of  Felicity,  the  Gate  of  Happiness,  the 
Mother  of  the  World. 

The  municipal  government  of  Constantinople  embraces  all  the  cities  and 
villages  fringing  the  Bosphorus  from  the  Euxine  to  the  Sea  of  Marmora,  in- 
cluding the  Princes  Islands.  But,  although  the  superficial  extent  of  the 
municipality — counting  the  water  expanse  of  the  Strait,  the  Golden  Horn  and 
the  northern  part  of  the  Marmora — is  quite  large,  its  actual  land  area  is  com- 
paratively restricted. 

2  Voyage  en  Orient,  Tom.  Ill,  p.  190  (Brussels,  1835). 

s Through  South  America's  Southland,  Chap.  IV  (New  York,  1916). 


ROMA  NOVA  53 

trembling  shadows  on  the  glimmering  waters  of  the  Sea  of 
Marmora  and  served,  for  more  than  eleven  hundred  years, 
as  effective  bulwarks  against  the  fierce  assaults  of  Avars 
and  Goths,  Arabs  and  Persians,  Slavonians  and  Bul- 
garians and  Mongols.  And,  as  I  threaded  my  way  through 
its  narrow  and  devious  streets  and  inspected  the  pictur- 
esque and  tumble-down  houses,  I  found  special  pleasure  in 
scrutinizing  the  letters  and  inscriptions  and  epitaphs  en- 
graved on  slabs  of  marble  or  on  blocks  of  granite,  some  of 
which  were  in  their  original  position  while  others  had  been 
used  in  the  construction  of  some  now  crumbling  wall  or 
building.  If  they  could  speak,  what  stories  could  not  these 
disconnected  letters  and  incomplete  inscriptions  tell  of  the 
shadowy  past — stories  of  dark  and  strange  events  con- 
nected with  sieges  and  conquests — stories  of  intrigue  and 
deeds  of  violence  and  tyranny  in  which  ambitious  eunuchs, 
heartless  pashas,  and  blood-thirsty  sultans  were  the  chief 
actors — stories,  too,  of  exalted  virtue  and  heroism  dis- 
played by  noble  men  and  women  that  time  the  fanatic  fol- 
lowers of  Mohammed  boastfully  announced  their  intention 
to  plant  the  Crescent  over  the  Cross  and  to  remove  from 
the  devoted  city  of  Constantine  the  last  vestiges  of  Chris- 
tian art  and  culture. 

The  first  object  to  claim  my  attention  after  arriving  in 
Constantinople  was  the  majestic  and  solemn  church,  now 
a  mosque,  of  Santa  Sophia.  To  the  Greeks  it  is  known  as 
the  church  of  Hagia  Sophia — Divine  Wisdom.  More  fre- 
quently, however,  it  is  called  *H  McyaXv]  EkkXyioIu — "The 
Great  Church — the  church  par  excellence.'* 

Exteriorly  this  masterpiece  of  Byzantine  basilicas  has  the 
aspect  of  a  massive,  irregular  time-worn  fortress.  Sur- 
rounded by  all  kinds  of  low,  unsymmetrical  buildings — 
shops,  storehouses,  baths,  schools,  turbehs — one  can  have 
no  idea  of  its  original  design  or  external  appearance  as  it 
came  from  the  hands  of  its  architects,  Anthemius  of  Tralles 
and  Isidore  of  Miletus. 


54   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

The  beauty  of  Santa  Sophia,  like  that  of  so  many  of  the 
famous  churches  of  the  Old  World,  is  within.  But  even 
within,  the  first  impression  of  the  ordinary  visitor  is  one 
of  disappointment.  But  its  surpassing  beauty  and  gran- 
deur quickly  reveal  themselves  and  then  one  stands  in  awe 
and  amazement.  Its  marvelous  harmony  of  design,  its 
wealth  of  ornamentation,  its  lavish  display  of  the  finest 
marbles,  porphyries,  jaspers,  serpentines,  granites,  alabas- 
ters, gold  mosaics  are  bewildering  in  their  effect  and  one 
can  easily  realize  what  must  have  been  the  splendor  and 
magnificence  of  this  august  temple  when,  on  the  day  of  con- 
secration, the  emperor  Justinian  exultantly  exclaimed: 
Glory  be  to  God,  who  has  deemed  me  worthy  to  accomplish 
such  an  undertaking.  ZoAo|jcjv,  veviKigoa  oc — Solomon,  I  have 
conquered  thee ! 

And  his  exclamation  of  triumph  was  justified.  For  never 
before  had  the  spoils  of  paganism's  great  sanctuaries  con- 
tributed so  much  towards  the  erection  and  embellishment  of 
any  single  Christian  edifice.  Among  the  massive  columns 
which  support  the  great  arches  of  the  basilica  are  eight 
of  verdantique  which  were  brought  from  the  celebrated 
Temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus.  There  are  eight  of  porphyry 
which  belonged  to  the  Temple  of  the  Sun  in  Baalbek.  These 
were  the  gifts  of  the  noble  Roman  lady,  Marcia,  who,  with 
characteristic  piety,  offered  them,  as  she  expressed  it — 
Ynep  T^c  ^pux'Kyjc  fjov  ouTyjpiac; — for  the  salvation  of  my 
Boul. 

In  addition  to  these  splendid  monoliths  there  are  col- 
umns from  the  Temple  of  the  Sun,  at  Palmyra;  from  the 
Temple  of  Jupiter  at  Cyzicus ;  from  temples  in  Greece  and 
Italy,  Egypt,  and  the  Cyclades.  Its  floor,  walls,  piers,  ar- 
cades are  overlaid  with  precious  marbles  of  every  hue — 
snow-white  marble  from  Paros  and  Pentelicus,  azure  mar- 
ble from  Lybia,  green  marble  from  Laconia,  flecked,  rose, 
yellow,  and  golden  marbles  from  Marmora,  Synnada, 
Phrygia,  and  Mauritania.     On  all  sides  is  a  magnificent 


ROMA  NOVA  55 

display  of  wonderful  shafts,  capitals,  cornices,  lintels,  and 
panels  of  colors  as  variegated  as  their  provenience  is  mani- 
fold. In  them  we  see  grayish  marbles  from  sea-girt 
Proconnesus,  verdantique  from  Thessaly,  cipoUino  from 
Euboea,  Pavonazzetto  from  Synnada,  lumachelle  from 
Chios,  Brocatel  from  Spain,  Fior  di  Persico  from  Dalmatia, 
Bardiglio  from  the  Apennines,  giallo  antico  from  distant 
Numidia  and  bianco  and  nero-antico  from  the  far-off 
Pyrenees,  while  from  the  still-worked  quarries  of  Egypt 
are  marbles  of  emerald  green  and  imperial  purple. 

Nor  is  this  all.  Besides  marbles  of  every  hue  and  from 
every  clime  there  are  borders  of  green  serpentine,  columns 
and  panels  of  jasper  of  every  shade,  bands  of  oriental  ala- 
baster of  clear  honey  color  from  the  land  of  the  Nile, 
exedras  of  porphyry  from  the  Thebes  of  the  Pharaohs — 
all  arranged  so  as  to  produce  the  most  perfect  harmony  of 
color  and  the  most  impressive  effect  on  the  beholders.* 

When,  even  in  its  present  defaced  and  despoiled  condi- 
tion, Santa  Sophia  is  still  one  of  the  greatest,  if  not  the 
greatest,  triumphs  of  Church  architecture,  what  must  it  not 
have  been  when  ''its  domes  and  vaultings  resplendent  with 
gold  mosaic  interspersed  with  solemn  figures"  made  it, 
what  is  in  many  respects  the  most  magnificent  temple  of 
worship  that  the  world  has  yet  known. 

The  Grand  Opera  House  of  Paris  boasts  of  the  beauty 
of  its  interior  which  is  adorned  with  thirty-three  varieties 
of  marble  and  other  ornamental  stones.  It  is  indeed  beau- 
tiful, but  it  cannot  compare  with  the  matchless  interior  of 
the  Church  of  Holy  Wisdom  which  is  embellished  by  the 
spoil  of  the  most  superb  temples  of  antiquity  and  the  treas- 
ures of  the  richest  quarries  of  the  civilized  world. 

No  other  monarch  has  ever  had  at  his  disposition  such 
rare  and  precious  building  materials  as  had  Justinian  for 
the  construction  of  Santa  Sophia  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that 

*  For  an  elaborate  account  of  Justinian's  marvelous  temple  see  The  Church 
of  Sancta  Sophia  Constantinople,  Chaps.  Ill,  IV,  XI  (by  Lethaby  and  Swain- 
son,  London,  1894). 


56   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

no  one  will  ever  again  have  materials  of  such  uniqueness 
and  value.  When  one,  therefore,  considers  all  their  rich- 
ness and  the  admirable  manner  in  which  they  have  been 
utilized,  we  can  easily  understand  how  the  legend  soon  arose 
which  declares  that  while  the  Church  of  Holy  Wisdom  was 
building,  the  workmen  were  specially  instructed  by  an  angel 
from  heaven.  Nor  need  we  go  far  for  the  origin  of  the 
story  according  to  which  Justinian  set  up  a  statue  ''repre- 
senting Solomon  as  looking  at  the  Great  Church  and  gnash- 
ing his  teeth  with  envy."  And  one  is  not  surprised  at  the 
rapturous  expressions  of  Corippus,  a  poet-bishop  of  the 
sixth  century,  when  he  declares,  "Praise  of  the  temple  of 
Solomon  is  now  silenced  and  the  Wonders  of  the  World 
have  to  yield  the  preeminence.  Two  shrines  founded  by 
the  wisdom  of  God  have  rivaled  Heaven,  one  the  Sacred 
Temple,  the  other  the  splendid  fane  of  Santa  Sophia,  the 
vestibule  of  the  Divine  Presence."  ^ 

But  the  most  striking  feature  of  this  magnificent  struc- 
ture is  its  dome.  As  viewed  from  below,  it  seems,  as 
Madame  de  Stael  says  of  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's,  "like 
an  abyss  suspended  over  one's  head,"  or  as  the  Byzantian 
historian,  Nicetas  Acominatus,  declares  "an  image  of  the 
firmament  created  by  the  Almighty. ' ' 

The  eminent  architectural  authority,  Fergusson,  speak- 
ing of  Justinian 's  masterpiece,  avers,  '  *  Internally,  at  least, 
the  verdict  seems  inevitable  that  Santa  Sophia  is  the  most 
perfect  and  most  beautiful  church  which  has"  yet  been 
erected  by  any  Christian  people.  When  its  furniture  was 
complete  the  verdict  would  have  been  still  more  strongly 
in  its  favor."" 

But  the  Ottomans,  in  taking  possession  of  this  unique 
sanctuary,  removed  or  destroyed  its  priceless  furniture 
and  decorations  and  concealed  its  matchless  mosaic  pic- 
tures— pictures  which  Ghirlandajo  declares  are  "the  only 
paintings   for    eternity" — with    a   layer    of   white-wash! 

^  Annaliutn,  Pars  V,  p.  498  (by  M.  Glycas,  Bonn). 

«  History  of  Architecture,  Vol.  II,  p.  321   (London,  1867). 


EOMA  NOVA  57 

And  although  in  its  present  condition,  it  is  still,  despite 
Moslem  desecration,  the  delight  of  the  artists  and  archi- 
tects of  the  world,  its  interior  is  as  far  from  exhibiting 
the  glories  of  its  pristine  state  as  is  the  exterior  of  the 
Parthenon,  since  its  mutilation  by  Lord  Elgin — an  act  of 
vandalism  denounced  by  Byron  as  "a  triple  sacrilege" — ■ 
from  displaying  the  peerless  beauty  of  the  sublime  crea- 
tion of  Ictinus  and  Phidias. 

Is  it  then  any  wonder  that  Saint  Sophia  was,  from  its 
completion,  regarded  as  the  very  heart  of  the  Byzantine 
Empire — that  it  has  ever  held  the  same  place  in  the  affec- 
tions of  the  Greeks  as  St.  Peter's,  the  Cathedral  of  Rheims, 
and  Westminster  Abbey  occupy  in  the  hearts  of  the  peoples 
of  Italy,  France,  and  England?  And  is  it  a  matter  of  sur- 
prise that, 

Though  turhans  now  pollute  Sophia's  shrine 

the  Greeks  of  to-day  still  cherish  the  hope  that  it  will,  in 
the  designs  of  Providence,  eventually  be  returned  to  them 
and  that  Christian  worship,  with  all  the  pomp  of  the  Gre- 
cian liturgy,  will  again  be  restored  under  Santa  Sophia's 
wondrous  dome? 

It  is  related  that  when  Mohammed  II,  the  conqueror  of 
Constantinople,  took  possession  of  Santa  Sophia,  he  ob- 
served an  Ottoman  soldier  destroying  the  mosaics  of  the 
church  with  his  mace.  "Let  those  things  be,"  Mohammed 
cried,  and  with  a  single  blow  he  stretched  the  fanatical  van- 
dal at  his  feet.  And  then,  in  a  lower  tone,  he  added,  so 
the  historian  avers,  **Who  knows  but  in  another  age  they 
may  serve  another  religion  than  that  of  Islam?"  God 
grant  it ! 

Nor  have  the  Greeks  ever  abandoned  the  hope  of  one  day 
regaining  possession  of  the  City  of  Constantinople.  They 
claim  it  as  their  heritage,  which  was  lost  to  them  by  the 
fortunes  of  war,  and  they  patiently  await  the  turn  in  for- 
tune's wheel  when 


58   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

The  city  won  for  Allah  from  the  Oiaour, 

The  Oiaour  from  Oihman's  race  again  may  wrest.'' 

After  leaving  Santa  Sophia,  I  spent  some  time  in  the 
extensive  grounds  of  the  Seraglio,*  which,  since  the  young 
Turks  have  come  into  power,  have  been  used  as  a  public 
park.  About  the  buildings  and  the  occupants  of  the  Seraglio 
much  has  been  written — the  greater  part  of  it  based  on 
imagination  rather  than  on  fact.  But  I  have  no  desire  to 
dwell  on 

That  spacious  seat 
Of  Wealth  and  Wantonness, 

which,  for  three  centuries,  was  *'the  heart  of  Ottoman  his- 
tory" and  which  for  ten  generations  was  the  home  of  palled 
votaries  of  pleasure,  but  too  often,  alas!  the  hated  prison 
of  innocent  victims  who  were  condemned  to  pander  to  the 
basest  passions  of  heartless  minotaurs  of  lust  and  crime. 

To  the  south  of  Santa  Sophia  is  all  that  remains  of  the 
Hippodrome  which,  in  its  heyday  of  splendor,  was  regarded 
as  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world.  Modeled  after  the 
Circus  Maximus  of  Rome,  it  served  as  a  forum,  as  a  race 
course,  and  a  museum  in  which  were  collected  the  choicest 
sculptures  of  Egypt,  Asia  Minor,  and  Greece.  Here  were 
statues  of  Phidias  and  Praxiteles  and  other  master  sculp- 
tors of  the  ancient  world.  Among  them  were  an  exquisite 
statue  of  Helen  of  Troy,  "whose  beauty  of  form  and  feature 
drove  brave  men  distraught, ' '  and  the  famed  bronze  horses 
of  Lysippus — ^which  were  carried  off  by  Dandolo  to  Venice, 
where  they  now  adorn  the  cathedral  of  San  Marco — and 
countless  other  masterpieces  of  scarcely  less  value  and 
beauty. 

Besides  serving  as  a  race  course  the  Hippodrome,  which 
had,  it  is  estimated,  a  seating  capacity  of  a  hundred  and 

'  Byron,  "Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage,"  Canto  II,  Stanza  77. 

8  The  name  given  by  the  Italians  to  the  official  residence  of  the  Grand  Signer 
in  Constantinople.  The  Turks  use  the  word  Serai,  which  is  derived  from  the 
Persian  serai,  signifying  palace — a  word  which  is  applied  to  any  residence  of 
Sultan.  In  English  seraglio  is  frequently,  but  erroneously,  confused  with 
harem. 


ROMA  NOVA  59 

twenty  thousand  people,  was  used  for  every  purpose  that 
could  attract  a  large  multitude  of  people.  The  Spina — a 
low  wall  dividing  the  Hippodrome  into  two  sections — ^was, 
in  common  parlance,  *Hhe  axis  around  which  the  Byzantine 
world  revolved."  It  was  the  favorite  place  for  athletic 
sports  and  for  the  exhibition  of  wild  animals.  It  was  here 
that  distinguished  emperors  and  generals,  like  Heraclius 
and  Nicephorus  and  Belisarius,  celebrated  their  victories 
over  the  enemies  of  the  empire.  It  was  here  that  were  wit- 
nessed not  only  the  pride,  the  power,  and  the  glories  of  New 
Rome,  but  also  its  tragedies,  its  massacres,  its  decadence, 
and  ruin.  In  the  acme  of  its  magnificence  this  historic 
circus,  with  its  forty  tiers  of  marble  seats  and  its  superb 
promenade  which  surmounted  all,  was  resplendent  with  the 
most  beautiful  works  of  Greek  and  Roman  art — spoils  from 
Egypt,  Syria,  Asia  Minor,  Greece,  Italy,  Mauritania. 

Of  this  marvelous  Hippodrome  only  a  part  of  the  site  is 
now  visible,  while  of  its  ornaments  but  three  are  still 
extant.  These  are  a  bare  column  of  masonry  once  covered 
with  bronze  plates  which  caused  it  **to  gleam  like  a  column 
of  light";  an  Egyptian  obelisk  that  antedates  the  time  of 
Moses,  and  one  of  the  most  ancient  relics  of  Greece.  This 
is  the  Serpent  column  from  Delphi  which,  with  the  bronze 
"Wolf  of  the  Capitol  in  Rome,  "may  count  as  the  most 
precious  metal  relic  which  remains  from  the  ancient  world. " 
It  bears  witness  to  the  final  defeat  of  Xerxes  at  Plataea,  the 
first  great  triumph  of  the  West  over  the  East.  For  eight 
centuries  it  served  as  a  pedestal  for  the  golden  tripod  of 
the  priestess  of  the  god,  and  during  long  centuries  it  was 
for  the  Greeks  an  object  of  pilgrimage.  When,  nearly  two 
thousand  years  later,  the  East,  under  Mohammed  the  Con- 
queror, was  victorious  over  the  West,  this  secular  monu- 
ment was  permitted  to  remain  on  the  base  which  has  sup- 
ported it  for  sixteen  centuries  that  it  might  continue  "to 
bear  witness  to  the  link  of  New  Rome  with  Old  Greece" 
and  endure  as  a  vivid  reminder  of  the  pomp  of  Byzantine 
rule  and  of  the  continuity  of  civilization. 


60   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Scarcely  less  interesting  to  me  than  the  age-old  remnants 
of  the  Hippodrome  were  the  massive  and  crumbling  walls 
that  for  a  thousand  years  were  the  city's  palladium  against 
the  barbarian  hordes  of  Asia  and  Europe.  "What  visions 
crowd  upon  the  memory  as  one  stands  upon  this  hoary  ram- 
part and  surveys  the  scene  around  one !  It  was  thanks  to 
the  impregnable  walls  of  Constantinople  no  less  than  to  the 
unique  strategic  position  of  the  city  that  Roma  Nova  was 
able  so  long  to  hold  her  place  as  the  home  of  art  and  letters, 
history  and  philosophy;  that,  in  spite  of  desolating  wars 
which  everywhere  raged  in  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  which 
at  times  carried  their  ravaging  effects  to  her  very  gates, 
she  continued  to  be  the  world's  one  sure  refuge  of  law, 
justice,  and  freedom;  that,  notwithstanding  internecine 
strife,  and  changes  of  dynasties,  her  government  was  the 
one  that  for  centuries  afforded  the  greatest  security  for  life 
and  property ;  the  one  under  which  commerce  and  civiliza- 
tion were  most  fostered  and  most  flourishing. 

If  the  walls  of  Constantinople  could  speak,  what  thrilling 
stories  could  they  not  relate  of  the  score  of  sieges  to  which 
they  were  exposed !  For  vivid  color  and  breathless  interest 
they  surpass  the  siege  of  Tyre  by  Alexander,  the  siege  of 
Carthage  by  Scipio,  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  by  Godfrey  de 
BouUlon  as  described  in  the  glowing  epic  of  Tasso.  Unlike 
the  last-named  sieges,  those  directed  against  the  city  on  the 
Bosphorus  ''stand  out  on  the  canvas  of  history  by  the  mag- 
nitude of  the  issues  involved  to  religion,  to  nations,  to 
civilization."  This  is  particularly  true  of  the  sieges  by 
Saracens,  Turks,  and  Mongols,  for,  if  these  barbarians  and 
sworn  enemies  of  the  Christian  name  had  succeeded  in 
piercing  the  walls  of  this  greatest  bulwark  of  civilization 
before  the  dawn  of  the  reconstructive  work  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  the  results  to  learning,  art,  Christendom  would 
have  been  disastrous  beyond  conception,  while  progress  and 
social  order  would  have  been  retarded  for  untold  centuries. 

Never,  probably,  in  the  history  of  our  race  has  the  pos- 
session of  any  city  led  to  more  devastating  and  longer 


ROMA  NOVA  61 

continued  wars,  to  greater  international  rivalries  and  con- 
tentions than  has  the  fair  capital  on  the  Golden  Horn.  It 
was  in  673 — but  little  more  than  a  generation  after  Moham- 
med's death — ^when  the  Moslems  under  the  Saracen 
Moawiah  laid  siege  to  Constantinople,  which  was  then  the 
greatest  and  the  richest  city  of  the  known  world.  They 
were  defeated  but  not  crushed.  Knowing  the  incalculable 
treasures  the  city  contained  and  realizing  fully  its  supreme 
importance  as  the  center  of  a  world  empire,  they  deter- 
mined never  to  desist  from  their  purpose  until  Constanti- 
nople was  the  capital  and  sovereign  seat  of  Islam.  Not 
until  1453,  after  eight  centuries  of  deferred  hopes,  were 
their  aspirations  realized. 

For  a  much  longer  period  has  Russia  had  her  longing  eyes 
on  what  she  was  wont  to  call  * '  The  Sacred  City ' ' — the  city 
which  had  so  long  been  the  goal  of  the  nations  of  Asia  and 
Europe.  From  the  days  of  Rurik,  the  reputed  founder  of 
the  Russian  monarchy,  the  Muscovites  have  never  ceased 
to  look  forward  to  the  time  when  the  peerless  city  of  Con- 
stantine  would  be  in  the  possession  of  Holy  Russia,  and 
when  the  strategic  channel  which  links  the  Euxine  with  the 
Mediterranean  would  be  under  her  absolute  control. 

For  a  thousand  years  the  forces  of  Russia  continued 
irresistibly  to  move  toward  the  Bosphorus  and  the  'Dar- 
danelles. "When  Catherine  II,  ''The  Semiramis  of  the 
North,"  in  1787,  made  her  magnificent  progress  through 
Southern  Russia  she  entered  the  city  of  Kherson  under  a 
triumphal  arch  which  bore  the  inscription  **The  "Way  to 
Byzantium."  As  still  further  expressive  of  her  faith  in 
Russia's  ultimate  destiny  there  was  a  gate  in  Moscow 
named  ' '  The  Way  to  Constantinople. ' ' 

But  this  was  not  all.  With  the  Austrian  Emperor,  Joseph 
II,  she  worked  out  a  scheme  for  a  restored  Greek  Empire, 
with  Constantinople  as  its  capital,  the  throne  of  which  was 
to  be  given  to  her  second  grandson.  And  so  sure  was  she  of 
effectuating  her  plan  that  ''the  boy  with  sagacious  pre- 
science had  been  christened  Constantine;    he  was  always 


62   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

dressed  in  the  Greek  mode,  surrounded  by  Greek  nurses 
and  instructed  in  the  tongue  of  his  future  subjects.  That 
no  detail  might  be  lacking  which  foresight  could  devise,  a 
medal  had  already  been  struck,  on  one  side  of  which  was 
a  representation  of  the  young  prince's  head  and  on  the 
other  an  allegorical  device  indicating  the  coming  triumph 
of  the  Cross  over  the  Crescent. ' '  * 

At  the  famous  conference  on  the  raft  anchored  in  the 
river  Nieman,  when  Napoleon  and  Alexander  I  discussed 
plans  for  the  division  of  the  world's  sovereignty,  the  Rus- 
sian monarch  demanded,  as  his  share  of  the  partition,  the 
City  of  Constantinople  together  with  the  Bosphorus  and 
the  Dardanelles.  For  this  he  was  willing  to  concede  to  the 
French  Emperor  the  most  valuable  regions  on  the  Mediter- 
ranean littoral  and  to  aid  him  with  money  and  men  in  his 
projected  conquest  of  India.  But  this  the  ambitious  dic- 
tator of  Europe  would  not  grant.  Placing  his  finger  on  the 
map  where  Constantinople  was  indicated,  he  exclaimed  with 
passionate  emphasis,  ''Constantinople!  Constantinople! 
Never.  That  would  mean  the  empire  of  the  world!"  At 
St.  Helena  he  again  gave  clear  expression  to  his  estimate 
of  the  value  of  Constantinople  when  he  declared  ''Con- 
stantinople est  placee  pour  etre  le  centre  et  le  siege  de  la 
dominion  universelle."  ^* 

9  The  Eastern  Question,  p.  139  et  seq.  (by  J.  A.  R.  Marriot,  Oxford,  1917). 
Whatever  may  be  said  regarding  the  genuineness  of  the  famous  "Political 
Testament"  of  Peter  the  Great  "there  can  be  no  question  that  it  accurately 
represented  the  trend  and  tradition  of  Russian  policy  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. Constantinople  was  clearly  indicated  as  the  goal  of  Russian  ambition. 
The  Turks  were  to  be  driven  out  of  Europe  by  the  help  of  Austria;  a  good 
understanding  was  to  be  maintained  with  England  and  every  effort  was  to  be 
made  to  accelerate  the  dissolution  of  Persia  and  to  secure  the  Indian  trade. 
Whether  inherited  or  not  these  were  the  principles  which  for  nearly  forty 
years  inspired  the  policy  of  Peter  the  Great's  most  brilliant  successor  on  the 
Russian  throne,  Catherine  II."    Marriot,  op.  cit.,  p.  138. 

IOC/.  Napoleon  et  Alexandre  ler.  Vol.  1,  p.  268  (by  Albert  Vadal,  Paris, 
1869).  The  famous  Field  Marshal  von  Moltke  expressed  a  similar  opinion 
when  he  wrote,  in  1846,  "Rom  wurde  eine  Weltstadt  durch  seine  Manner, 
Konstantinople  durch  seine  Weltstellung" — Rome  was  a  world-city  because 
of  her  men,  Constantinople  because  of  her  world  location.  Gesammelte 
Schriften  iind  Denkwurdigkeiten  des  Oeneral-Feldmarschalls,  Tom.  I,  p.  165 
(by  Grafen  Helmuth  von  Moltke,  Berlin,  1892).  Mr.  D.  G.  Hogarth,  in  his 
valuable  work,  The  Nearer  East,  declares:  "No  other  site  in  the  world  enjoys 
equal  advantages,  nor  perhaps  iever  will  enjoy  them.     For  the  Isthmus  of 


ROMA  NOVA  63 

Almost  exactly  a  thousand  years  after  the  death  of  Rurik, 
Russia's  victorious  army  was  at  San  Stephano  within  sight 
of  the  domes  and  minarets  of  the  City  of  Constantine.  ^'At 
last,"  shouted  the  jubilant  soldiers,  *'we  have  reached  our 
goal  and  Czargrad" — their  name  for  Constantinople — *'is 
ours ! ' '  Only  a  few  hours  more,  they  fondly  believed,  and 
they  would  see  the  Greek  cross  supplanting  the  Crescent 
at  the  dome  of  Santa  Sophia  and  the  dreams  of  ten  centuries 
finally  realized. 

But  it  was  not  to  be.  Russia  had  indeed  advanced  nearer 
the  goal  on  which  her  eyes  had  been  fixed  for  a  thousand 
years,  but  the  coveted  prize,  though  seemingly  so  near,  was 
yet  far  from  her  grasp.  The  Treaty  of  San  Stephano  had, 
it  is  true,  established  a  dominant  Slav  state  in  the  Balkans 
which  it  was  intended  should  be  but  a  simple  dependency  of 
Russia  and  a  stepping  stone  to  Constantinople,  but  the 
treaty  was  scarcely  signed  before  England  and  others  of 
the  Great  Powers  insisted  on  its  revision.  This  was  done 
at  the  Congress  of  Berlin.  Here  Beaconsfield,  in  order  ''to 
check  Russian  influence  in  the  Balkans"  and  to  safeguard 
**the  vital  requirements  of  Britain's  Eastern  policy,"  in- 
sisted on  the  restoration  of  ''the  position  of  Turkey  as  a 
European  state" — a  position  which  had  been  practically 
lost  by  the  treaty  of  San  Stephano." 

Suez  is  beset  by  deserts,  and  that  of  Panama  has  a  climate  not  to  be  com- 
pared. Constantinople  not  only  has  an  open  and  most  fertile  environment 
and  easy  access  to  the  interior  of  both  Europe  and  Asia,  but  its  position  be- 
tween two  seas  and  exposure  on  the  side  of  Russia  gives  it  an  almost  northern 
climate.  Add  to  this  a  dry,  sloping  site,  a  superb  harbor,  an  admirable  outer 
roadstead,  easy  local  communication  by  way  of  the  Bosphorua  and  an  inex- 
haustible water  supply,  and  it  is  easy  to  agree  that  those  who  founded 
Chalcedon  but  left  Byzantium  to  others,  were  indeed  blind."  Pp.  240,  241 
(New  York,  1902). 

11  Beaconsfield  boasted  on  his  return  from  Berlin  to  England  that  he  had 
secured  "peace  with  honor."  McGahan,  the  brilliant  war  correspondent,  de- 
clared as  soon  as  he  read  the  treaty,  that  "it  was  not  worth  the  paper  on 
which  it  was  written."  An  English  writer,  forty  years  later,  stigmatized  it 
as  a  treaty  that  "was  concluded  in  a  spirit  of  shameless  bargain,  with  a  sub- 
lime disregard  of  elementary  ethics  and  in  open  contempt  of  the  right  of 
civilized  peoples  to  determine  their  own  future.  It  was  essentially  a  tempo- 
rary arrangement  concluded  between  rival  imperialist  states.  And  it  sowed 
the  seeds  of  the  crop  of  'Nationalist'  wars  in  which  the  Balkan  peoples  were 
to  be  embroiled  for  the  next  half  century."  The  Turks  in  Europe,  p.  179  (by 
W.  E.  D.  Allen,  London,  1919). 


64   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

The  Turk  is  still  in  Constantinople  and  is  there  notwith- 
standing the  loud  and  reiterated  declarations  of  statesmen 
from  Gladstone  to  Lloyd  George  that  he  was  to  be  cast  ''bag 
and  baggage"  out  of  Europe  for  evermore,  but,  when  one 
remembers  that,  since  the  days  of  Solyman  the  Magnificent, 
the  imminent  downfall  of  Turkey  as  a  European  power  has 
been  confidently  predicted  scores  of  times ;  that,  since  the 
Osmanlis  reached  the  Bosphorus  nearly  six  centuries  ago, 
no  fewer  than  a  hundred  plans  have  been  made  for  the 
partition  of  their  territory  ^^  and  that  recently  the  English 
premier,  Lloyd  George,  made  the  evacuation  of  Constanti- 
nople by  Turkey  an  essential  condition  of  peace — at  least 
until  he  could  have  time  to  change  his  opportunist  mind — 
one  asks  oneself  how  much  longer  the  Sultan  will  success- 
fully pursue  his  time-honored  policy  of  divide  et  impera 
and  how  much  longer  diplomats  will  continue  to  insist  that 
the  maintenance  of  the  City  of  Constantine  as  the  capital 
of  the  Ottoman  Empire  is  a  political  necessity,  and  when,  if 
ever,  Russia's  persistent  ambition  of  a  thousand  years  will 
at  last  be  realized.^^  From  present  indications  there  is 
little  likelihood  that  the  jealousies  of  the  more  powerful 
nations  of  Europe  respecting  the  matchless  capital  of  the 
Golden  Horn  will  abate  or  that  the  traditional  ability  of 
Turkey's  astute  rulers  to  play  off  the  Great  Powers  one 
against  the  other  will  be  less  marked  in  the  future  than 
in  the  past. 

If,  however,  there  is  to  be  a  transfer  of  Constantinople 
to  some  other  power  than  that  of  the  Ottoman  Empire, 
poetic  justice  seems  to  require  that  the  aspirations  of 
Greece  should  receive  first  consideration.     Greek  in  lan- 


12  Cent  Projects  de  Partage  de  la  Turquie,  1281-1913  (by  T.  J.  Djuvara, 
Paris,  1913). 

13  The  distinguished  Russian  scholar,  Prince  Eugene  Nicolayevich  Trubets- 
koy,  expresses  in  a  single  sentence  the  dominant  idea  of  his  countrymen  when 
he  declares:  "The  possession  of  the  Straits" — the  Bosphorus  and  the  Dar- 
danelles— ^"may  become  indispensable  for  Russia  in  order  to  secure  her  daily 
bread;  the  possession  of  Tsargrad  as  the  condition  of  her  power  and  im- 
portance as  a  State."  See  his  lecture  Saint  Sophia,  Russians'  Hope  and 
Calling,  p.  8  (London,  1916). 


ROMA  NOVA  65 

guage  and  nationality  from  the  days  of  Byzas  until  it  was 
lost  by  the  fortunes  of  war  to  the  followers  of  Mohammed, 
this  city  is  claimed  by  the  people  that  counts  among  its  own 
a  Belisarius,  a  Pulcheria,  a  Tribonian,  an  Anthemius,  a 
Chrysostom,  a  Gregory  Nazienzus — ^men  and  women  who 
in  eminence  and  achievement  were  surpassed  by  none  of 
their  contemporaries  west  of  the  Adriatic  and  who  were 
the  glories  of  the  greatest  home  of  art  and  literature  and 
culture  when  Russia  was  yet  a  land  of  wild  nomads 
and  ignorant  barbarians.  And  this  same  people  claims 
Constantinople  as  theirs  "by  origin  and  by  long  possession, 
a  possession  which  has  in  some  sort  gone  on  both  under 
Frankish  and  under  Turkish  rule."" 

One  of  the  most  interesting  and  picturesque  sights  in 
Constantinople,  but  of  a  far  different  character  from  those 
of  which  I  have  been  speaking,  is  to  be  seen  on  the  lower 
bridge  over  the  Golden  Horn.  Connecting  Galata,  the  part 
of  the  city  which  is  chiefly  inhabited  by  non-Mussulmans, 
with  Stamboul,  which  is  occupied  almost  entirely  by  Turks 
and  Moslems  of  various  nationalities,  this  bridge  is  fre- 
quently crowded  with  people  of  every  color  and  from  every 
clime.  But  what  a  noisy,  jostling,  struggling,  wrangling, 
cosmopolitan  throng  one  here  encounters!  Here  one  sees 
representatives  from  all  parts  of  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa 
— bright-turbaned  Turks,  supple  and  chattering  Greeks, 
jauntily  attired  dragomans,  gorgeously  uniformed  kavasses, 

1*  "The  eternal  Eastern  Question,"  writes  the  historian  Freeman,  "will 
never  be  settled  till  the  Greek  nation  once  more  has  its  own.  We  claim  for 
that  nation  that  whole  extent  of  land  in  Europe  and  Asia  where  the  Greek 
race  and  speech  is  the  race  and  speech  of  the  Christian  population;  and  with 
that  we  claim  for  them  their  own  ancient  capital,  the  city  of  the  Constantines, 
the  Leo9,  and  the  Basils.  We  claim  all  this  on  the  score  of  simple  justice,  on 
the  score  of  that  general  philanthropy  which,  when  Greeks  are  concerned, 
is  not  ashamed  of  the  name  of  philhellenism." 

Again,  he  declares:  "The  fact  that  Constantinople  has  been  and  is  and  ever 
must  be  the  head  of  South-eastern  Europe  is  a  practical  fact  which  stares  ua 
in  the  face.  And  while  this  fact  may,  with  those  who  look  below  the  surface, 
awaken  some  fears  which  do  not  lie  on  the  surface,  allay  some  fears  which  do. 
Constantinople  can  never  be  the  head  of  a  province;  it  must  be  the  head  of 
an  empire.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  it  can  now  be  the  head  of  an  uni- 
versal empire.  Its  annexation  by  a  distant  power  would,  in  all  moral  cer- 
tainty lead  to  the  dismemberment  of  the  power  that  annexed  it."  Historical 
Essays,  Third  Series,  pp.  376,  277   (London,  1879). 


66   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

heavily  burdened  hamals,  round-browed  Montenegrins, 
white-kirtled  Albanians,  bronzed  and  sun-dried  Bedouins 
from  Arabia,  shuflfling  and  high-voiced  eunuchs  from  Nubia 
and  Abyssinia,  and  high-capped  Tartars  from  the  steppes 
of  Russia  and  Central  Asia — all  vociferating  in  a  score  of 
languages  and  dialects,  all  utterly  regardless  of  those  who 
are  round  about  them. 

And  such  a  variety  of  garbs  and  partial  garbs  I  And  yet 
they  attract  no  attention  in  this  motley  crowd  who  here,  as 
elsewhere  in  the  East,  are  accustomed  to  seeing  people 
appareled  in  garments  of  every  conceivable  style  and  color. 
*'A  man,"  as  has  been  observed  by  one  who  knows  the 
Orient  well,  ''may  go  about  in  public  veiled  up  to  the  eyes, 
or  clad,  if  he  please,  only  in  a  girdle ;  he  is  merely  obeying 
his  own  law"" — following  a  custom  which  has  prevailed 
among  his  ancestors  through  countless  generations. 

After  a  tiresome  climb  I  once  found  myself  on  the  highest 
platform  of  the  lofty  Galata  tower.  From  this  point  one 
has  probably  the  best  obtainable  view  of  Constantinople  and 
its  environment.  The  panorama  which  is  disclosed  is  cer- 
tainly beautiful,  superb;  but  I  am  not  prepared  to  agree 
with  the  enthusiastic  writer  who  declares  that  ''nothing  on 
this  globe  can  surpass  it — that  it  is  incomparable  in  its 
panoramic  variety  and  sublimity ! "  "  I  still  contend  that 
the  palm  for  enchanting  scenic  beauty  and  for  magnificent 
natural  panoramas  belongs  to  Rio  de  Janeiro. 

I  readily  grant,  however,  that  in  wealth  of  legend, 
romance,  and  historic  associations  of  every  kind  New  Rome 
far  surpasses  the  fascinating  capital  of  Brazil.  And  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  most  of  those  who  descant  so  enthusi- 
astically on  the  marvelous  beauty  of  Constantinople  uncon- 
sciously allow  their  judgments  of  the  city 's  present  beauties 
to  be  colored  by  the  magic  and  the  glamour  of  the  historic 
past. 

Considering  the  Byzantine  capital  as  the  theater  of  thrill- 
is  jSyHa,  the  Desert  and  the  Sown,  p.  X  (by  G.  L.  Bell,  London,  1908). 
16  Constantinople,  Vol.  I,  p.  403   (by  E.  A.  Grosvenor,  Boston,  1895). 


EOMA  NOVA  67 

ing  deeds  and  notable  achievements,  it  is  probably  unsur- 
passed in  human  interest  except  by  Rome,  Athens,  and 
Jerusalem.  And  the  views  one  may  have  from  the  height 
of  Galata's  tower  are,  historically  considered,  inferior  only 
to  those  that  so  impress  the  spectator  who  stands  on  the 
ruin-crowned  summit  of  the  Palatine,  the  majestic  portico 
of  the  Parthenon,  and  the  sanctified  heights  of  the  Mount  of 
Olives. 

As  I  stood  on  the  dizzy  balcony  which  surmounts  the  lofty 
tower  and  beheld  the  magnificent  vistas  that  opened  up 
before  me  on  every  side,  I  realized  as  never  before  what  a 
unique  site  was  occupied  by  the  City  of  Constantine.  On 
the  north  are  the  cypress  and  palace-crowned  hills  of  the 
winding  Bosphorus  and  the  delightful  Sweet  Waters  of 
Europe,  which  are  even  more  attractive  than  the  rival 
Sweet  Waters  of  Asia.  On  the  south  gleams  the  silver 
expanse  of  the  Marmora,  in  which  are  mirrored  the  pictur- 
esque Islands  of  the  Princes,  over  which  hover  so  many 
morbid  and  voluptuous  memories  of  the  past.  On  the  east 
across  the  Strait  stand  out  in  bold  relief  the  Maiden's 
Tower  and  the  Golden  City  of  Scutari,  both  wrapped  in  an 
atmosphere  of  heavy  and  exotic  passion  and  ''holding  their 
secrets  of  the  Orient  closely  hidden  from  the  eyes  of 
Europe."  On  the  hills  laved  by  the  glimmering  waters  of 
the  Golden  Horn  and  the  Sea  of  Marmora,  and  bounded  on 
the  west  by  the  historic  plain  of  Thrace,  proudly  sits,  half 
veiled  by  a  tremulous  amethystine  haze,  the  peerless  Queen 
of  the  East  in  all  her  majesty  and  shedding  on  the  fasci- 
nated beholder  a  strange  sense  of  mystery — seeming  not  a 
living,  palpable  thing,  but  rather  a  brilliant  phantasm,  or 
a  rainbow  dream  of  mystic  remoteness. 

Almost  within  a  stone's  throw  of  where  I  stood  was  the 
Golden  Horn  sprinkled  with  hundreds  of  delicate,  pointed 
caiques  and  bearing  on  its  sapphire  bosom  ships  of  all  sizes 
and  flying  the  flags  of  all  nations.  It  was  up  this  famous 
stream  that  Byzas,  the  reputed  son  of  Neptune,  steered  his 
frail  craft  nearly  seven  centuries  before  our  era.    And  it 


68   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

was  on  the  southern  bank  of  this  sheltered  haven  that  the 
daring  navigator,  with  his  doughty  Megarans,  laid  the  foun- 
dation of  Byzantium — named  after  himself — which  was  to 
play  such  a  remarkable  role  in  the  world 's  great  drama. 

A  thousand  years  later — almost  to  a  day — Constantino 
the  Great  abandons  the  city  of  Romulus  and  selects  that  of 
Byzas  as  the  capital  of  the  great  Roman  empire.  On  foot, 
with  a  lance  in  hand,  the  Emperor  leads  a  solemn  proces- 
sion, and,  under  divine  command — jubente  Deo,  as  he 
phrased  it — traces  the  boundary  of  the  future  metropolis. 
His  assistants,  astonished  at  the  over-growing  circum- 
ference of  the  destined  capital,  ventured  to  observe  that 
the  contemplated  area  of  a  great  city  had  already  been 
exceeded.  "I  shall  continue  to  advance,''  replied  the 
Emperor,  "until  the  Invisible  Guide  who  precedes  me  bids 
me  halt.'* 

It  was  across  the  Golden  Horn  that  "blind  old  Dan- 
dolo ' ' — that  marvelous  doge  of  ninety-seven  years — led  the 
Venetian  forces  against  Constantinople  and  awakened 
the  degenerate  Greeks  from  "a  dream  of  nine  centuries — 
from  the  vain  presumption  that  the  capital  of  the  Roman 
Empire  was  impregnable  to  foreign  arms."  The  marble 
mausoleum  of  this  remarkable  man — whose  physical  and 
mental  powers  were  vigorous  to  the  last — occupied  a  place 
in  Santa  Sophia  until  it  was  transformed  into  a  mosque, 
and,  even  to-day,  one  may  see  in  one  of  the  galleries  of  the 
venerable  fane  a  marble  slab  bearing  in  almost  illegible 
characters  the  name  of  Henricus  Dandolo. 

And  it  was  across  the  Golden  Horn  that  Mohammed  II 
passed  when  he  entered  the  breached  walls  through  New 
Rome  as  conqueror.  But  he  was  not  able  to  effect  an 
entrance  into  the  ill-fated  city  without  passing  over  the 
lifeless  body  of  its  noble  defender,  the  valiant  Constantino 
Paleologus,  the  last  of  the  Byzantine  CsBsars.^' 


17  This  tragic  event  is  vividly  pictured  by  the  poet  Shelley  when  in  his 
lyrical  drama,  Hellas,  he  sings: 


EOMA  NOVA  69 

A  chasm 
As  of  two  mountains,  in  the  wall  of  Siamhoul; 
And  in  that  ghastly  breach  the  Islamites, 
Like  giants  on  the  ruins  of  a  world, 
Stand  in  the  light  of  sunrise.    In  the  dust 
Glimmers  a  kingless  diadem,  and  one 
Of  regal  part  has  cast  himself  beneath 
The  stream  of  war.    Another  proudly  clad 
In  golden  arms  spurs  a  Tartarian  barb 
Into  the  gap,  and  with  his  iron  mace 
Directs  the  torrent  of  that  tide  of  men. 
And  seems — he  is — Mohamet. 

For  six  centuries  Constantinople  had  been  an  impreg- 
nable bulwark  against  the  forces  of  Islam.  For  nearly  twice 
that  space  of  time  she  had  successfully  resisted  the  menaces 
and  attacks  of  the  barbarians  of  the  north — Goths,  Huns, 
Avars,  Eussians,  Bulgarians,  Chazars — and  had  proudly 
defied  the  power  of  Chosroes,  Timur,  Bayazid,  Harun-al- 
Eashid,  and  other  leaders  of  savage  hordes  from  Persia, 
Arabia,  and  Central  Asia.  Unlike  Old  Rome,  which  fre- 
quently opened  her  gates  to  invaders  from  the  north  of  the 
Danube,  New  Eome  never  once  yielded  to  her  Teutonic  and 
Slavonian  foes.  Although  besieged  more  than  a  score  of 
times  between  the  fourth  and  the  thirteenth  century^*  she 
was  able  to  withstand  every  assault  however  furious  or 
long  continued.  And  this  she  did  after  the  vast  empire 
which  once  extended  from  the  Tigris  to  the  Guadilquivir 
had  been  so  reduced  that  little  was  left  of  it  but  the  capital 
itself,  which,  at  the  time  of  its  capture  by  the  Turks  under 
Mohammed  II,  was  scarcely  more  than  a  besieged  fortress. 

How  the  occupation  of  Constantinople  by  Mohammed 
the  Conqueror,  has  complicated  the  political,  military,  and 
economic  conditions  of  Europe  for  nearly  five  centuries  is 
a  matter  of  gloomy  history.  Owing  to  its  matchless  posi- 
tion it  was  long  the  natural  center  of  the  world 's  xjommerce, 

18  According  to  the  eminent  Austrian  historian,  Von  Hammer-Purgstall, 
the  city  sustained,  from  the  time  of  its  foundation  until  its  capture  by  Mo- 
hammed II,  no  fewer  than  twenty-nine  sieges.  Hiatoire  de  VEmpire  Ottommn, 
Tom.  II,  pp.  428,  621-523  (Paris,  1835). 


70   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

the  clearing  house  between  Europe  and  Asia.  Destined  by 
nature  itself  to  be  the  seat  of  two  worlds,  Constantinople 
must,  as  Freeman  well  observes,  *' remain  the  seat  of  im- 
perial rule  as  long  as  Europe  and  Asia,  as  long  as  land  and 
sea  keep  their  places."" 

The  transfer  of  the  capital  of  the  Roman  Empire  from 
the  Tiber  to  the  Golden  Horn,  the  foundation  of  Constanti- 
nople in  330  A.  D.,  was  one  of  the  master-strokes  in  the 
history  of  civilization — indeed  from  the  material  and  strat- 
egic point  of  view,  I  hold  it  to  be  the  greatest.  Rome,  Paris, 
London,  Vienna,  Moscow,  Madrid,  Berlin,  Washington,  be- 
came capital  cities  by  the  gradual  acts  of  the  rulers  in  the 
course  of  years.  But  in  ten  years  Constantinople  remade 
the  center  of  the  civilized  world.  Nothing  so  stupendous 
in  civic  origins  has  ever  been  accomplished  before  or  since, 
for  its  effects  have  been  maintained  with  rare  and  partial 
breaks  for  eleven,  nay,  for  fifteen  centuries.  The  founda- 
tion of  Alexandria  by  Alexander,  of  Antioch  by  Seleucus 
have  some  parallels.  Mecca,  Jerusalem,  Cairo,  Delhi  have 
had  fluctuating  histories.  Peter's  creation  of  Petrograd 
was  a  splendid  mistake,  which  has  ended  in  hideous  failure. 
But  the  creation  of  Constantinople  marks  Constantino  as 
one  of  the  truly  great,  beside  Julius,  Trajan,  Charles  and 
Washington.^" 

But  more  remarkable  than  anything  that  has  yet  been 
said  of  the  Queen  City  of  the  Bosphorus  is  her  marvelous 
continuity  of  imperial  rule.  From  the  time  when  Constan- 
tine  transferred  the  capital  of  the  empire  from  the  Tiber  to 
the  Golden  Horn,  when,  in  the  works  of  Dante, 

Per  cedere  al  Pastor  si  fece  Greco,^^ 
New  Rome — ^notwithstanding  all  its  wars  and  vicissitudes, 

19  Op.  cit.  p.  251. 

According  to  Augier  de  Busbecq,  the  scholarly  Flemish  diplomat,  who,  in 
the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  spent  eight  years  at  the  Ottoman  Court, 
Constantinople  "is  a  city  which  nature  herself  has  designed  to  be  the  mistress 
of  the  world.  It  stands  in  Europe,  looks  upon  Asia,  and  is  within  reach  by 
sea  of  Egypt  and  the  Levant  on  the  south  and  the  Black  Sea  and  its  European 
and  Asiatic  shores  on  the  north."  Letters,  Vol.  I,  p.  123  (trans,  by  D.  Forster, 
Paris,  1881). 

20  Frederic  Harrison,  The  Fortnightly  Review,  June,  1919,  pp.  840,  841. 

21  Became  a  Greek  by  ceding  to  the  Pastor.    Paradiso,  XX,  67. 


ROMA  NOVA  71 

all  its  changes  of  race  and  religion,  all  its  changes  of  laws 
and  customs  and  institutions — ^has  been  the  continuous  seat 
of  empire  for  sixteen  centuries.  This  is  something  that  is 
Vf ithout  parallel  in  the  history  of  our  race. 

Rome  was  the  local  center  of  empire  for  barely  four  cen- 
turies .  .  .  The  royal  cities  that  once  flourished  in  the  val- 
leys of  the  Ganges,  the  Euphrates  or  the  Nile  were  all 
abandoned  after  some  centuries  of  splendor,  and  have  long 
lost  their  imperial  rank.  Memphis,  Babylon,  Tyre,  Car- 
thage, Alexandria,  Syracuse,  Athens,  had  periods  of  glory 
but  no  great  continuity  of  empire.  London  and  Paris  have 
been  great  capitals  for  at  most  a  few  centuries ;  and  Madrid, 
Berlin,  Vienna,  and  St.  Petersburg  are  things  of  yesterday 
in  the  long  roll  of  human  civilization.'^^ 

This  exceptional  continuity  in  Constantinople  may,  it  has 
been  asserted,  **be  ultimately  traced  to  its  incomparable 
physical  and  geographical  capabilities." 

But  while  I  contemplated  the  capital  of  Constantino  as  it 
lay  bathed  in  the  tremulous  and  ethereal  atmosphere  of  an 
autumn  afternoon  and  recalled  its  past  history,  enveloped 
in  the  mist  of  years — a  history  which  then  seemed  more  like 
a  confused  and  troubled  dream  than  a  veritable  record  of 
stirring  and  vivid  actualities — I  presently  lost  sight  of  the 
wars  and  sieges  and  conquests  of  which  this  Castle  of 
the  Caesars  has  so  frequently  been  the  theater  and  thought 
of  its  rather  as  the  erstwhile  home  of  art  and  literature,  as 
the  renowned  center  of  religion  and  culture. 

Among  its  ecclesiastical  rulers  were  some  of  the  brightest 
luminaries  of  the  Eastern  Church.  There  was  the  scholarly 
St.  John  Chrysostom,  *  *  the  greatest  preacher  ever  heard  in 
a  Christian  pulpit."  ^^  There  was  the  illustrious  St.  Greg- 
ory Nazienzus,  whom  Villeman  calls  the  greatest  Oriental 
poet  of  Christendom.  There  was  Photius,  **  whose  learning 
and  width  of  culture  was  astonishing  and  whose  library- 
catalogue  is  the  envy  of  modern  scholars. "   And  there  were 

22  Frederic  Harrison,  The  Fortnightly  Review,  April,  1894,  pp.  439,  440. 
28  C/.  the  author's  Oreat  Inspirers,  p.  16  (New  York,  1917). 


72       FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

those  two  learned  women,  the  Empress  Eudocia  and  the 
Princess  Anna  Comnena,  who,  as  Gibbon  phrases  it,  **  culti- 
vated in  the  purple,  the  arts  of  rhetoric  and  philosophy."  ^* 

It  was  in  Constantinople  that,  at  the  command  of  Jus- 
tinian, was  framed  the  famous  Code  that  bears  his  name — 
the  most  important  of  all  monuments  of  jurisprudence  and 
which,  notwithstanding  subsequent  modifications,  is  still  the 
basis  of  all  legislation  throughout  the  civilized  world. 

It  was  here  that  Byzantine  art  took  its  highest  flights. 
Santa  Sophia  was  but  one  of  the  churches  of  New  Rome 
from  which  western  artists  and  architects  drew  their  inspi- 
ration. We  see  this  in  the  paintings  of  Cimabue  and  Giotto 
and  in  the  countless  Italian  edifices  which  exhibit  the 
evidence  of  Byzantine  influence. 

And  it  was  here,  in  the  libraries  and  monasteries,  that 
was  preserved  that  precious  heritage  of  Greek  thought  and 
Greek  genius,  which,  at  a  later  age,  was  to  be  transferred 
to  Western  Europe,  and  which,  through  the  activity  of 
Byzantine  scholars,  was  to  be  the  foundation  of  the  Renais- 
sance. During  the  period  immediately  preceding  the  Con- 
quest of  Constantinople  there  was,  declares  Gibbon,  **more 
books  and  more  knowledge  within  the  walls  of  Constanti- 
nople than  could  be  dispersed  over  the  extensive  countries 
of  the  West."  ^= 

**When  the  arms  of  the  Turks  pressed  the  flight  of  the 
Muses"  from  the  Queen  City  of  the  East,  Greek  learning 

24  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  Vol.  V,  Chap.  LIII. 

25  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  VI,  Chap.  LXVI.  "Indeed,"  declares  a  recent  writer,  "when 
we  consider  that  this  state — the  Byzantine  Empire — was  for  a  thousand 
years  the  defence  of  Europe  against  Asiatic  invaders,  which  beat  back  the 
Arabs  and  Seljouks,  and  checked  for  a  century  the  advance  of  the  Ottomans, 
when  at  the  height  of  their  power;  that  during  this  period  it  represented 
civilization  in  the  midst  of  barbarism,  and  maintained  a  wide  commerce  by 
land  and  sea;  that  by  its  missionaries  both  the  Russians  and  the  South 
Slavonic  peoples  were  evangelized,  and  the  Cyrillic  alphabet  invented;  that 
to  its  care  in  preserving  and  multiplying  manuscripts  the  existence  of  a  great 
part  of  our  classical  literature  is  due;  and  finally,  that  it  was  the  birthplace 
of  Italian  painting,  and  that  its  architecture  has  exercised  a  greater  power 
than  any  other  style,  reaching  in  its  effects  from  Spain  to  India;  we  can 
hardly  overestimate  its  influence  on  the  world's  history."  History  of  Oreece 
From  Its  Conquest  by  the  Romans  to  the  Present  Time,  B.O.  H6  to  A.D.  1864, 
Vol.  I,  p.  vii  (by  George  Finlay,  Oxford,  1877). 


ROMA  NOVA  73 

sought  an  asylum  on  the  banks  of  the  Arno  and  the  Tiber. 
Among  the  first  of  Greek  scholars  to  find  a  congenial  home 
in  the  land  of  Dante  and  Petrarch  were  Janon  Lascaris  and 
Manuel  Chrysoloras.  They  were  received  with  open  arms 
in  the  universities  of  the  Peninsula  and  lectured  with  signal 
success  to  vast  numbers  of  eager  and  enthusiastic  students 
of  every  age  and  condition.  But  nowhere  were  they  and 
others  of  their  countrymen  of  a  later  date  ^^  accorded  a 
more  cordial  welcome  than  in  the  palaces  of  the  Medici  and 
at  the  courts  of  Leo  X  and  Nicholas  V.  Under  such  illus- 
trious patrons,  Greek  letters  flourished  amazingly  and 
quickly  prepared  the  way  for  the  great  humanistic  move- 
ment that  culminated  in  the  literary  triumphs  of  Politian, 
Reuchlin,  and  Erasmus. 

But  the  fall  of  Constantinople  was  epoch-making  not  only 
in  its  relation  to  the  Humanistic  Renaissance  but  also  in  its 
effect  on  the  economic  and  commercial  development  of 
Europe.  Before  the  Ottomans  achieved  the  conquest  of  the 
GrsBco-Roman  Empire  of  the  East,  this  region  constituted 
what  has  happily  been  designated  as  *'the  nerve-center  of 
the  world *s  commerce."  But  no  sooner  had  it  passed 
into  the  hands  of  the  Ottomans  than  the  great  trade  routes 
between  the  Orient  and  Europe  were  completely  blocked 
**by  a  power  inimical  to  commerce  and  still  more  inimical 
to  those  Christian  nations  for  whose  benefit  intercourse 
between  the  East  and  West  was  mainly  carried  on.'* 

It  was  then  imperative  for  Europe,  unless  it  was  pre- 
pared to  forego  its  trade  with  the  East,  to  discover  a  new 
route  to  the  Orient,  which  would  be  beyond  the  interference 
of  Ottoman  power.  This  much  desired  result  was  accom- 
plished by  two  of  the  most  decisive  events  in  the  world's 
history — **the  rounding  by  Vasco  da  Gama  of  the  Cape  of 

26  Among  the  more  distinguished  Hellenists  besides  Lascaris  and  Chryso- 
loras, whose  labors  in  Italy  contributed  enormously  towards  initiating  and 
developing  the  work  of  the  Renaissance,  and  who  reflected  undying  honor  on 
the  Greek  name,  must  be  mentioned  Theodore  Gaza,  Gemistus  Plethon,  John 
Argyropoulos,  George  of  Trebizond,  Demitrius  Chalcondyles,  and  Cardinal 
Bessarion — who  were  all,  as  Hody,  the  noted  Hellenist  of  Oxford,  declared, 
"viri  nullo  cevo  perituri." 


74   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Good  Hope  and  the  discovery  of  the  New  World.  *  *  By  these 
far-reaching  achievements  *Hhe  center  of  gravity,  commer- 
cial, political  and  intellectual,  rapidly  shifted  from  the 
southeast  of  Europe  to  the  northwest;  from  the  cities  of 
the  Mediterranean  littoral  to  those  of  the  Atlantic.  Con- 
stantinople, Alexandria,  Venice,  Genoa,  Marseilles  were 
deprived  at  one  fell  swoop  of  the  economic  and  political 
preeminence  which  had  for  centuries  belonged  to  them" 
.  .  .  and  the  Mediterranean,  which  for  ages  had  "been  the 
greatest  of  commercial  highways,  was  reduced  almost  to 
the  position  of  a  backwater. '*  ^'^ 

Among  the  many  names  given  to  the  Ottoman  capital. by 
the  peoples  of  the  East  is  that  bestowed  upon  it  by  the 
Arabs,  namely.  El  Farruch — the  Earth-Divider.  In  view 
of  what  has  been  said  in  the  preceding  pages  no  epithet 
could  be  more  expressive  of  the  truth.  For,  since  the  fall 
of  the  Byzantine  Empire,  Constantinople,  together  with  its 
two  appanages,  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Dardanelles,  has 
constituted  the  chief  line  of  demarcation  between  the  East 
and  the  West,  between  the  Cross  and  the  Crescent. 

One  of  the  most  diflScult  and  delicate  problems  which 
diplomacy  has  yet  to  solve — war  has  been  impotent  to  bring 
about  a  solution — is  the  future  status  of  the  historic  city 
of  the  Bosphorus  and  the  relations  between  the  powers  of 
Islam  and  the  Christian  nations  of  Europe. 

As  the  solution  of  the  problem  cannot,  apparently,  be 
effected  by  conquest  or  by  a  sordid  exploitation  of  the  lands 
of  the  East,  it  seems  that  the  time  has  now  arrived  when 
more  unselfish  and  more  Christian  methods  should  be 
applied  than  those  based  on  force  and  international 
rivalries. 

We  owe  much,  very  much,  to  the  East.  From  her,  through 
Greece  and  Rome,  have  come  our  civilization  and  culture, 
our  art  and  literature.  From  her  has  come  the  religion 
that  molds  the  mind  and  purifies  the  heart  of  Christendom. 
To  her,  therefore,  we  owe  an  immense  debt  of  gratitude, 

27  Marriott,  op.  cit.,  Chap.  II. 


ROMA  NOVA  75 

a  debt  that  can  be  paid  only  by  helping  her  in  her  present 
lethargic  state  and  by  aiding  her  to  return  to  her  former 
condition  of  vigor  and  progress.  We  should,  consequently, 
endeavor  to  understand  the  needs  of  the  East  in  order  that 
we  may  the  more  intelligently  contribute  towards  her  resus- 
citation— moral  and  intellectual,  as  well  as  material — and 
that  we  may  more  rationally  cooperate  with  her  in  regain- 
ing, at  least  in  a  measure,  that  position  of  preeminence 
which  she  occupied  when  she  was  acclaimed  the  cradle  of 
civilization  and  the  mother  of  culture;  when  Bagdad  and 
Damascus  were  famed  centers  of  learning;  when  Saracen 
scholars  made  known  to  the  nations  of  the  West  the  treas- 
ures of  Greek  science  and  philosophy;  when  it  was  said, 
"In  all  other  parts  of  the  world  light  descends  upon  earth, 
from  Holy  Bokhara  it  ascends." 

Is  this  an  impossible  task?  It  is  certainly  not  unworthy 
of  being  essayed  by  the  lovers  of  humanity,  who  are  be- 
holden to  the  East  for  the  greatest  blessings  they  now 
enjoy.  The  welfare  of  our  race  and  the  peace  of  the  world 
demand  the  removal  of  the  impassable  barriers  which  have 
so  long  separated  the  Orient  from  the  Occident.  Of  all  the 
plans  now  engaging  the  minds  of  men  for  securing  per- 
manent peace  in  the  Near  East  and  achieving,  at  the  same 
time,  its  spiritual  and  social  regeneration,  this  seems  to  be 
the  only  one  that  is  likely  to  have  a  successful  issue — the 
only  one  which  has  a  real  basis  in  genuine  altruism  and 
Christian  righteousness. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  HELLESPONT  AND  HOMER'S  TROY 

Now  let 
Us  fly  to  Asia's  cities  of  renown! 
Already  through  each  nerve  a  flutter  runs 
Of  eager  hope,  that  longs  to  fee  away; 
Already  'neaih  the  light  of  other  suns 
My  feet,  new-winged  for  travel,  yearn  to  stray. 

Catullus,  XLVI. 

After  awaking  from  a  protracted  reverie  on  the  summit 
of  Galata's  lofty  tower  I  found,  to  my  surprise,  that  I  had 
spent  much  more  time  there  than  I  had  originally  intended. 
Twilight,  delicate  and  ethereal,  was  beginning  to  fall  and 
to  veil  the  mosques  and  minarets  and  cypress-crowned 
heights  of  solemn,  crafty,  mysterious  Stamboul.  An  ani- 
mated pageant  was  slowly  wending  its  way  through  the 
Grand  Rue  de  Pera — part  of  it  on  its  way  to  popular  resorts 
of  amusement  and  relaxation;  part  returning  from  the 
cares  of  office  and  counting-room  to  the  repose  of  homes 
on  the  tranquil  banks  of  the  palace-fringed  Bosphorus. 

But  I  could  linger  no  longer  in  the  contemplation  of  such 
fascinating  scenes.  The  previous  day  I  had  made  arrange- 
ments with  a  friend  to  take  the  steamer  that  very  evening 
for  Chanak  Kalesi,  on  the  Dardanelles.  One  of  my  long 
unrealized  dreams  had  been  to  visit  the  site  of  ancient 
Troy.  Several  times  I  had  been  near  it,  but  pressing  en- 
gagements had  always  prevented  me  from  gazing  on 
the  spot 

Where  stood  old  Troy,  a  venerable  name, 
Forever  consecrated  to  deathless  fame. 

A  few  moments  after  oar  steamer  left  her  moorings  in 
the   Golden  Horn,   she   began   to   round   Seraglio   Point. 

76 


THE  HELLESPONT  AND  HOMER'S  TROY    77 

Galata  and  Pera  twinkle  in  the  gathering  gloom.  The 
domes  and  minarets  of  Stamboul  rise  like  dark,  shadowy 
monsters  above  the  somber  groups  of  low,  wooden  houses 
by  which  they  are  surrounded.  Broken  stars  quiver  in  the 
swift-flowing  waters  of  the  Bosphorus  and,  while  we  are 
still  gazing  at  the  venerable,  ivy -mantled  walls  and  towers 
that  so  long  guarded  the  City  of  Constantino,  we  enter  the 
Sea  of  Marmora — known  to  the  ancients  as  the  Propontis — 
the  sea  before  the  Pontus  or  the  Euxine  of  which  Herodotus 
says  "there  is  not  in  the  world  any  other  sea  so  wonderful.'* 
Early  the  following  morning  we  were  in  the  storied  chan- 
nel of  the  Thracian  Hellespont — now  more  familiarly  known 
as  the  Dardanelles.  Like  the  Bosphorus,  the  Hellespont  is 
replete  with  human  and  historic  interest,  and,  as  I  contem- 
plated its  rugged  cliffs,  I  recalled  Lucan's  words  that  here 

Each  rock  and  every  tree  recording  tales  adorn. 

This  is  particularly  true  of  that  section  of  the  channel  at 
Fort  Nagara,  formerly  known  as  the  Strait  of  Abydos.  For 
it  was 

Here  young  Leander  perished  in  the  flood, 
And  here  the  tower  of  mournful  Hero  stood. 

It  was  here  that  the  venture-loving  Byron  swam  across 
the  Hellespont.  And  it  was  here  that  Xerxes  spanned  the 
Straits  with  the  famous  double  bridge  that  enabled  his  vast 
army  to  cross  over  to  the  Thracian  shore  on  his  way  to 
Greece,  where  "the  barbarian  despot  sought  to  repress  in 
the  deadly  bonds  of  Persian  thralldom  the  intellect  and  the 
freedom  of  the  world."  But  the  epoch-making  victory  of 
Salamis  frustrated  all  his  plans  of  conquest.  Accompanied 
by  his  counted  myriads  the  Persian  invader,  sure  of  his 
prey,  entered  Greece  with  all  the  wantonness  and  deadly 
hostility  of  barbaric  pride;  after  his  defeat  by  Themis- 
tocles,  when  army,  fleet,  and  treasure  were  gone,  he  was 


78       FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

forced  to  flee  like  the  meanest  fugitive.  The  Italian  poet, 
Luigi  Alemanni,  tells  in  a  single  line  the  fate  of  the  proud 
organizer  of  this  widely  heralded  campaign  when  he  writes : 

More  than  a  god  he  came,  less  than  a  man  he  fled. 

A  century  and  a  half  after  the  flight  of  Xerxes,  Alex- 
ander's army,  under  Parmenio,  crossed  the  Hellespont  at 
the  place  where  it  had  been  bridged  by  the  ambitious  and 
vainglorious  Persian  despot.  It  was  at,  or  near,  this  spot 
that  Frederick  Barbarossa  crossed  at  the  head  of  the 
Third  Crusade.  And  it  was  at  this  same  spot  that  Solyman 
Pasha,  the  warlike  son  of  Orkhan,  passed  from  Asia  to 
Europe,  where,  in  1354,  he  planted  the  Osmanli  standard 
and  where  it  has  ever  since  flown  as  a  sign  of  Moslem  faith 
and  of  Moslem  victory  over  the  hated  Giaour. 

We  disembarked  at  the  town  of  Chanak  Kalesi,  which 
Europeans  usually  call  the  Dardanelles.  It  is  noted  as 
being  at  the  narrowest  point  of  the  Hellespont — the  channel 
here  is  about  fourteen  hundred  yards  in  width — and  was 
until  recently  the  headquarters  of  the  general  in  command 
of  the  Turkish  troops  in  the  many  forts  which  defended 
the  Strait. 

In  the  long-discussed  plans  of  Napoleon  and  Alexander  I 
of  Russia,  for  joint  dominion  of  the  world,  the  Russian 
monarch  always  insisted  on  securing  possession  not  only 
of  the  Bosphorus  and  Constantinople  but  also  of  the 
Strait  of  the  Dardanelles.  But  the  French  emperor  just 
as  persistently  refused  to  acquiesce  in  the  Czar 's  demands. 
For  a  while  Napoleon  seemed  disposed  to  yield  the  Bos- 
phorus and  even  Constantinople,  but  nothing  could  induce 
him  to  consider  for  a  moment  the  granting  to  his  ally  of 
control  of  the  Dardanelles — the  key  to  the  Mediterranean. 

Alexander  insisted  that,  owing  to  its  geographical  posi- 
tion, the  Dardanelles  should  belong  to  Russia ;  that,  having 
Constantinople,  he  should  also  hold  the  key  to  the  ^gean. 
But  Napoleon  retorted  that,  if  Russia  possessed  this  impor- 


THE  HELLESPONT  AND  HOMER'S  TROY        79 

taut  waterway,  she  would  at  once  become  mistress  not  only 
of  the  commerce  of  the  Levant  and  of  India,  but  she  would 
also  be  a  constant  menace  to  Toulon,  to  Corfu,  and  to  the 
commerce  of  the  world. 

But  the  Czar  and  his  advisers  would  not  take  a  refusal. 
They  realized  that  they  would  never  again  have  so  good  an 
opportunity  of  gaining  possession  of  the  long-coveted  capi- 
tal on  the  Bosphorus  and  of  the  channel  connecting  the 
Euxine  with  the  Mediterranean  as  when  Napoleon  was 
counting  on  their  cooperation  with  him  in  his  great  schemes 
of  conquest  in  Asia.  Negotiations  continued  without  inter- 
ruption from  the  conference  of  Tilsit  to  that  of  Erfurt,  and 
nothing  stood  in  the  way  of  their  successful  issue  except  the 
possession  by  Russia  of  the  narrow  strait  between  the  Mar- 
mora and  the  ^gean.  In  return  for  this  Alexander  was 
prepared  to  accede  to  Napoleon's  every  wish. 

In  a  letter  of  Caulaincourt,  the  French  Ambassador  at 
St.  Petersburg,  written  to  Napoleon  in  1808,  the  envoy 
declares  that  Russia,  "once  mistress  of  Constantinople  and 
its  geographical  dependencies,  will  go  with  us  not  only  to 
India,  but  to  Syria,  to  Egypt,  wherever  we  may  judge  it 
useful  to  employ  her  fleets  and  draw  her  armies.  Besides 
this,  she  will  leave  the  French  Emperor  free  to  organize  the 
south  and  the  middle  of  Europe  as  he  may  elect.  Reserving 
for  herself  only  the  affairs  of  the  north,  she  will  abandon 
to  him  the  direction  of  all  the  others,  will  not  interfere  with 
his  gigantic  operations,  will  renounce  all  jealousy  and  will 
consent  that  the  partition  of  the  Orient  shall  in  fact  become 
the  partition  of  the  world." 

Concluding  his  letter  to  Napoleon,  Caulaincourt  writes: 

Let  your  majesty  reunite  Italy,  perhaps  even  Spain  to 
France;  change  dynasties,  found  kingdoms;  demand  the 
cooperation  of  the  Black  Sea  fleet  and  a  land  army  for  the 
conquest  of  Egypt;  demand  any  guarantees  whatsoever; 
make  with  Austria  any  exchanges  that  may  be  expedient; 
in  one  word,  let  the  world  change  place,  if  Russia  obtains 


80   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Constantinople  and  the  Dardanelles,  we  shall,  I  believe,  be 
able  to  have  her  consider  everything  without  uneasiness.* 

Could  anything  evince  more  clearly  than  this  remarkable 
statement  the  supreme  value  which  Alexander  placed  on 
the  Dardanelles  as  a  Russian  outlet  to  the  Mediterranean? 
And  could  a  more  tempting  offer  have  been  made  to  Napo- 
leon, who  was  then  the  arbiter  of  Europe  and  seemed  on  the 
point  of  becoming  the  dictator  of  the  world,  than  that  which 
was  dangled  before  his  eyes  by  his  ambitious  ally?  But  the 
compact  that  Russia  so  eagerly  desired  was  not  to  be  made. 
For  when  both  the  Czar  and  the  Emperor  appeared  to  be 
near  an  agreement  on  their  long-discussed  plans  of  world 
domination,  Spanish  valor  and  patriotism  and  Austrian 
diplomacy  were  concerting  to  check  the  Corsican's  vaulting 
ambition  and  to  prepare  for  his  ultimate  downfall  at 
Waterloo. 

In  a  preceding  page  reference  has  been  made  to  the  Arab 
name  —  El  Farruch  —  Earth-Divider  —  of  Constantinople. 
The  same  can  with  equal  reason  be  applied  to  the  Darda- 
nelles. For  during  long  centuries  it,  with  the  Bosphorus, 
has  been  an  effective  barrier  between  the  East  and  the  West 
and  has  constantly  held  in  check  Russia's  aspirations 
towards  the  Mediterranean.  How  much  longer  will  El 
Farruch  continue  to  keep  apart  the  nations  of  the  earth, 
and  how  long  will  it  prove  to  be  the  paramount  crux  of  the 
Near  Eastern  Question  and  the  occasion  of  long  and  san- 
guinary wars?  This  is  a  question  that  only  the  future — 
and,  apparently,  the  very  distant  future — can  answer. 

After  inspecting  the  fortifications  of  Chanak  Kalesi  and 
Kilid  Bahr  and  making  a  visit  to  the  site  of  ancient  Abydos, 
whence  Xerxes  is  supposed  to  have  surveyed  his  vast  army 
as  it  crossed  the  Hellespont,  and  whence  one  has  a  splendid 
view  of  the  narrowest  part  of  the  Strait,  we  prepared  to 
continue  our  journey  to  the  site  of  ancient  Troy. 

1  Napoleon  et  Alexander  I,  U Alliance  Russe  sous  he  Premier  Empire,  Tom. 
I,  p.  306  et  seq.  (by  Albert  Vandal,  Paris,  1896). 


THE  HELLESPONT  AND  HOMER'S  TROY    81 

Our  first  objective  was  Eren  Keui,  a  flourishing  Greek 
village,  where  we  purposed  stopping  over  night.  This  short 
trip  of  about  three  hours  we  made  on  horseback.  Our  road 
lay  along  the  edge  of  the  Strait  over  wooded  hills,  well- 
cultivated  valleys,  and  picturesque  villages  surrounded  by 
numerous  vineyards  and  olive  groves.  From  the  hills  we 
had  splendid  views  of  the  Dardanelles,  the  Thracian  Cher- 
sonese, the  distant  ^gean,  and  *'many-fountained  Ida" 
beyond  the  Trojan  plain. 

On  our  way  we  passed  the  site  of  Dardanus — a  town  also 
known  as  Teucris — from  which  the  Dardanelles  takes  its 
name.  The  epithet  Hellespont,  Sea  of  Helle — ^which  has 
also  been  given  to  the  Strait — is  derived  from  the  mythical 
Helle,  who  is  said  to  have  been  drowned  near  the  southern 
entrance  of  the  channel  that  bears  her  name. 

From  an  eminence  near  Eren  Keui,  which  we  reached 
under  an  overclouded  sky,  we  were  captivated  by  the  fasci- 
nating prospect  that  burst  upon  our  view.  For  some  miles 
ahead  of  us,  lying  in  a  tremulous  azure  haze. 

We  saw  the  dark  outline  of  the  Trojan  plain, 
Misty  and  dim,  as  things  at  distance  seem 
Through  the  fast  waning  light  of  summer  eve. 

We  lost  no  time  in  reaching  the  spot  which,  for  me  at 
least,  had  been  one  of  peculiar  and  ever-growing  interest 
since,  as  a  youth,  I  had  fallen  under  the  magic  spell  of  the 
immortal  author  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey.  And  I  was  not 
long  on  the  plain  of  Troy  v^hen  I  realized  the  full  force  of 
Byron's  words  when  he  declares: 

It  is  one  thing  to  read  the  Iliad  at  Sigeum  and  on  the 
tumuli,  or  by  the  springs  with  Mount  Ida  above  and  the 
plain  and  the  rivers  of  the  Archipelago  around  you,  and 
another  thing  to  trim  your  taper  over  it  in  a  snug  library — 
this  I  know.^ 

But  there  is  nothing  in  this  historic  region  that  will 

2  Note  to  "Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage,"  Canto  III,  strophe  XCI. 


82   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

appeal  to  the  ordinary  tourist.  It  is  a  circumscribed  plain 
about  eight  miles  long  by  four  broad,  on  which  he  will  see 
little  beyond  a  few  bare  hillocks  and  tumuli  and  occasional 
hunts  or  villages  of  the  poor  people  who  here  have  their 
home,'  and  hear  little  as  he  treads  his  way  through  the  scat- 
tered brakes  that  cover  much  of  the  ground  except  the  voice 
of  a  solitary  bird  which  at  intervals  bursts  into  song  and 
then  is  still. 

Nor  is  there  anything  here  to  attract  those  self-satisfied 
iconoclasts  who  not  only  deny  that  Homer  wrote  the  Iliad 
but  also  deny  his  very  existence.  Neither  is  there  anything 
here  to  impress  the  followers  of  Wolf  and  other  so-called 
atomists  who  insist  that  the  Iliad  is  but  a  collection  of  bal- 
lads composed  by  a  number  of  rhapsodists.*  Still  less  is 
there  here  aught  to  interest  those  who  not  only  maintain 
that  Homer  and  his  authorship  of  the  Iliad  are  myths  but 
who  also  contend  that  there  is  no  evidence  whatever  for 
believing  that  there  was  such  a  place  as  Troy  or  for  sup- 
posing that  the  traditional  Troy  was  located  in  this  place, 
or  that  there  ever  was  such  a  conflict  as  the  Trojan  War, 
which  is  so  graphically  described  in  the  Iliad. 


8  How  different  is  now  the  condition  of  the  Trojan  plain  from  what  it  was 
in  ancient  times !  Then  according  to  Schliemann  it  contained  "eleven  flourish- 
ing cities,  all  of  which  were  probably  autonomous  and  of  which  five  coined 
their  own  money.  If  we  consider  further  that  the  eleven  cities,  besides 
two  villages,  existed  here  simultaneously  in  classical  antiquity  and  that 
one  of  these — the  city  of  Ilium  itself — had  at  least  seventy  thousand  inhab- 
itants, we  are  astounded  and  amazed  how  such  large  masses  of  people  could 
have  found  the  means  of  subsistence  here,  whilst  the  inhabitants  of  the  present 
seven  poor  villages  of  the  plain  have  the  greatest  diflSculty  in  providing  for 
their  miserable  existence.  And  not  only  had  these  ancient  cities  an  abun- 
dance of  food  but  they  were  also  so  populous  and  so  rich  that  they  could 
carry  on  wars  and,  as  their  ruins  prove,  they  could  erect  temples  and  many 
other  public  buildings  of  white  marble;  Ilium  especially  must  have  been  orna- 
mented with  a  vast  number  of  such  sumptuous  edifices."  Troja,  Results  of  the 
Latest  Researches  and  Discoveries  on  the  Site  of  Homer's  Troy,  pp.  345,  346 
(New  York,  1884). 

*"The  main  contention  was  that  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  were  a  collec- 
tion of  songs  composed  at  different  times  and  of  very  unequal  values  and 
that,  like  the  Niehelungen  Lied,  they  could  be  resolved  into  shorter  lays,  each 
celebrating  the  deeds  of  individual  heroes.  The  more  famous  of  these  heroes, 
Achillea  for  example,  like  Siegfried,  had,  it  was  maintained,  their  ultimate 
origin  in  mythological  personages,  once  worshiped  as  divine."  Sohliemann's 
Excavations,  an  Archceological  and  Historical  Study,  p.  17  (by  C.  Schuch- 
hardt,  London,  1891). 


THE  HELLESPONT  AND  HOMER'S  TROY    83 

No.  To  be  thrilled  by  a  visit  to  the  well-fought  field  of 
Hium,  one  must  share  the  sentiments  which  animated  Byron 
when  he  contemplated  what  Catullus  so  well  denominated : 

Troia  (nefas)  commune  sepulchrum  AsicB  Europceque, 
Troia  virum  et  virtutum  omnium  acerha  cinis.^ 

He  must  share  the  sentiments  of  thousands  of  others — 
poets,  artists,  historians,  kings,  statesmen,  commanders  of 
vast  armies — ^who,  during  the  past  twenty-five  centuries, 
have  found  on  the  site  of  Ilium,  once  the 

City  of  unconquered  men 

an  inspiration  in  their  work  and  an  incentive  to  high 
achievement  which  they  could  not  find  in  the  same  degree 
in  any  other  place  in  the  wide  world. 

When  Xerxes,  with  his  army,  was  on  the  way  from  Sardis 
to  Greece  he  stopped  at  Troy,  and  "when  he  had  seen  every- 
thing and  inquired  into  all  particulars,  he  made  an  offering 
of  ten  thousand  oxen  to  the  Trojan  Minerva,  while  the 
Magians  poured  libations  to  the  heroes  who  were  slain  at 
Troy."« 

And  the  first  thing  Alexander  the  Great  did  on  arriving 
in  Asia,  previously  to  beginning  his  stupendous  campaign 
against  the  Persians,  was  to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  what  was 
once  the  city  of  Priam.  The  famous  Macedonian  was  a 
credit  to  his  master,  Aristotle,  both  as  a  scholar  and  as  a 
philosopher.  He  was,  moreover,  a  great  admirer  of  Homer 
and  slept  with  a  copy  of  the  Iliad  under  his  pillow.  Ascend- 
ing the  acropolis  of  New  Hium,  he,  like  Xerxes,  sacrificed 
to  Minerva  and  also  to  the  shade  of  Priam,  which  he  wished 
to  propitiate  befQre  starting  on  his  expedition  into  the 
heart  of  Asia.  And,  as  an  assumed  descendant,  through  his 
mother,  of  Achilles,  he  offered  an  oblation  on  the  tumulus 
of  Achilles,  beneath  which,  it  was  believed,  the  ashes  of  the 

6  Troy — 0  horror! — the  common  grave  of  Europe  and  Asia, 
Troy — the  untimely  tomb  of  all  heroes  and  heroic  deeds. 

LXVIIIA. 
«  Herodotus.     Book  VII,  43. 


84   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

hero,  together  with  those  of  his  friend  Patroclus,  were  pre- 
served in  a  golden  urn.  After  this  he  made  a  careful  topog- 
raphical survey  of  the  Trojan  plain.  And  so  convinced  was 
he  of  all  that  tradition  claimed  for  it  that  he  promised  to 
enrich  and  fortify  the  New  Ilium/  but  was  prevented  by 
premature  death  from  carrying  his  project  into  execution. 
Similarly  Julius  Caesar,  of  the  gens  Julia,  which  traced 
its  origin  to  lulus,  son  of  ^neas,  and  was  proud  of  its 
legendary  descent  from  Trojan  stock,  lavished  honors  on 
Troy,®  as  did  also  the  Consul  Livius,  who  offered  sacrifice 

7  Troy,  or  Ilium,  as  the  excavations  of  Schliemann  and  Dorpfeld  have 
shown,  was  destroyed  and  rebuilt  no  fewer  than  seven  times.  During  the 
Roman  period  it  was  known  as  Ilium  Novum  and  was  honored  as  the  city 
of  iEneas  and  consequently,  as  the  parent  of  Rome.  It  was  because  of  this 
fabulous  origin  of  the  Romans  that  Constantine  first  planned  to  establish  the 
seat  of  empire  on  the  plain  of  Troy  instead  of  locating  it  on  the  site  occupied 
by  Byzantium  between  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Golden  Horn.  Fortunately  he 
gave  his  preference  to  the  spot  where  has  since  stood  the  noble  city  which  , 
still  bears  his  name. 

Ilium  Novum  was  for  a  long  time  the  seat  of  a  bishopric,  but,  since  it  was 
plundered  by  the  Turks,  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  it  has 
lain  in  ruins. 

For  illuminating  accounts  of  Schliemann'a  epoch-making  investigations  see, 
besides  the  Troja  above  mentioned,  his  Troy  and  its  Remains  (New  York, 
1876);  Ilios,  the  City  and  Country  of  the  Trojans  (New  York,  1881);  and 
Schuchhardt's  work  already  quoted. 

Dr.  Schliemann  has  justly  been  acclaimed  the  creator  of  prehistoric  Greek 
archaeology.  "He  has  introduced,"  writes  Oxford's  distinguished  Orientalist, 
"a  new  era  into  the  study  of  classical  antiquity,  has  revolutionized  our  con- 
ceptions of  the  past,  has  given  the  impulse  to  that  'research  of  the  spade' 
which  is  producing  such  marvelous  results  throughout  the  Orient  and  nowhere 
more  than  in  Greece  itself.  The  light  has  broken  over  the  peaks  of  Ida  and 
the  long-forgotten  ages  of  prehistoric  Hellas  and  Asia  Minor  are  lying  bathed 
in  it  before  us.  We  now  begin  to  know  how  Greece  came  to  have  the  strength 
and  will  for  that  mission  of  culture  to  which  we  of  this  modern  world  are 
still  indebted.  We  can  penetrate  into  a  past  of  which  Greek  tradition  had 
forgotten  the  very  existence.  By  the  side  of  one  of  the  jade  axes  which  Dr. 
Schliemann  has  uncovered  at  Hissarlik,  the  Iliad  itself  is  but  a  thing  of  yes- 
terday. We  are  carried  back  to  a  time  when  the  empires  of  the  Assyrians 
and  the  Hittites  did  not  as  yet  exist,  when  the  Aryan  forefathers  of  the 
Greeks  had  not  as  yet,  perhaps,  reached  their  new  home  in  the  south,  but 
when  the  rude  tribes  of  the  neolithic  age  had  already  begun  to  traffic  and 
barter,  and  travelling  caravans  conveyed  the  precious  stone  of  the  Kuen-lun 
from  one  extremity  of  Asia  to  another.  Prehistoric  archaeology  in  general 
owes  as  much  to  Dr.  Schliemann's  discoveries  as  the  study  of  Greek  history 
and  Greek  art."  Professor  A.  H.  Sayce,  in  the  introduction  to  Dr.  Schliemann's 
Troja,  pp.  viii,  ix. 

8  According  to  Suetonius  and  Horace  both  Julius  Caesar  and  Augustus, 
like  Constantine  the  Great,  contemplated  making  Ilium — Troy — the  capi- 
tal of  the  Roman  Empire. 

Lucan  not  only  makes  Julius  visit  the  Ilium  of  his  day  and  "each  story'd 
place  survey" — 

Circuit  exustce  nomen  memorabile  Trojae — 


THE  HELLESPONT  AND  HOMER'S  TROY    85 

on  the  acropolis  of  Ilium,  in  the  name  of  Rome,  and 
not  only  exempted  it  from  tribute  but  also  gave  it  jurisdic- 
tion over  that  part  of  the  surrounding  country  known  as 
the  Troad. 

If  then,  one  would  come  under  the  spell  of  Troy,  if  one 
would  experience  the  magic  influence  of  its  spiritus  loci, 
one  must  visit  it  as  did  Byron  and  Caesar  and  Alexander — 
free  from  the  withering  doubts  raised  by  modern  atomistic 
criticism  and  with  a  reasonable  belief  not  only  in  the  exist- 
ence of  Priam's  city  but  also  in  the  personality  of  Homer 
and  in  his  authorship  of  the  marvelous  epic  on  the  Trojan 
war.  And  we  must  remember  that  for  nearly  three  thou- 
sand years  there  was  no  question  regarding  the  identity  of 
that  Greek  whom  Dante  calls  poeta  sovrano,  the  one,  he 
tells  us,  who  was 

Of  mortals  the  most  cherished  hy  the  nine.^ 

We  must  recall  the  estimation  in  which  he  was  held  by  the 
ancients,  who  never  wavered  respecting  the  identity  of 

The  blind  old  man  who  dwelt  on  Scio's  rocky  isle. 

So  paramount,  indeed,  were  the  reputation  and  influence  of 
the  immortal  poet  **  whose  genius  had  breathed  inspiration 
into  the  national  life  of  Greece"  that  it  was  said,  when  tra- 
dition respecting  his  sublime  achievements  was  still  fresh, 

Seven  cities  now  contend  for  Homer  dead 

Through  which  the  living  Homer  hegged  his  tread. 

but  also  has  him  register  a  solemn  vow  to  restore  Priam's  city  to  its  ancient 
state    and    honors — 

Restituam  populos,  grata  vice  moenia  reddent 
Ausomidce  Phrygihus,  Romanaque  Pergama  surgent. 
So  proud,  indeed,  were  the  Romans  of  Ilium  and  of  their  descent  from 
^neas  that  their  countrymen,  under  the  command  of  Cornelius  Scipio 
Asiaticus,  on  getting  their  first  view  of  the  home  of  their  forefathers 
from  the  Trojan  shore,  were  so  moved,  Virgil  informs  us,  that  they  exultingly 
exclaimed : 

0  patria,  0  divom  domua  Ilium  et  incluta  hello 
Moenia  Dardanidum  I 
"The  dignity  and  power  of  Ilium  being  thus  prodigiously  enhanced  we 
must  find   it  but  natural,"   observes   Grote,   "that  the   Ileans   assumed   to 
themselves   exaggerated   importance    as   the   recognized   parents   of  all  con- 
quering Rome."     History  of  Greece,  Vol.  I,  p.  328. 
» Purgartorio,  XXII,   102. 


86   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

The  genius  of  Homer  [declares  a  recent  writer]  was  wor- 
shiped as  god-like  and  temples  were  erected  to  his  honor 
at  Chios,  Alexandria,  Smyrna,  and  elsewhere ;  games  were 
also  instituted  in  his  memory;  Apollo  and  Homer  were 
actually  worshiped  together  at  Argos,  the  one  as  the  god 
of  song,  the  other  of  minstrelsy.^" 

Filled  with  these  thoughts  and  with  a  life-long  love  of  the 
poet's  masterpieces,  I  visited  every  nook  and  corner  of 
the  Trojan  plain  and  with  unrestrained  rapture  contem- 
plated the  places  which  had  so  haunted  my  youthful  imagin- 
ation when  I  first  became  acquainted  with  the  sublime  pages 
of  the  Iliad.  For  the  time  being  I  forgot  all  about  Wolf, 
Lachman,  Hermann,  and  other  advocates  of  the  atomistic 
theory  respecting  Homer's  matchless  epic  and,  like  a  child 
reading  a  fairy  tale,  I  loved  to  picture  before  my  eyes  the 
wonderful  events  which  Homer  so  vividly  describes  and 
which  seemed  to  me  almost  as  real  as  they  were  to  the  actual 
spectators  three  thousand  years  ago. 

Still  in  our  ears  Andromache  complains, 
And  siill  in  sight  the  fate  of  Troy  remains; 
Still  Ajax  fights,  still  Hector's  dragged  along, — 
Such  strange  enchantment  dwells  in  Homer's  song. 

Fancy  was  animated  as  I  strolled  along  the  storied 
Simois,  which  "sprouted  ambrosia-like  pasture''  for  the 
horses  of  Hera  and  Athena,  and  the  serpentine  Scamander 
— "fair-flowing  with  silver  eddies" — which  formerly  en- 
tered a  bay  upon  the  shores  of  which  the  Greeks  hauled  up 
their  ships,  and  as  1  stood  before  the  reputed  tumuli  of 
Achilles  and  Patroclus,  Ajax  and  Antilochus.  But  it  was 
more  vivacious  far  when  1  ascended  the  hill  of  Hissarlik, 
which  Schliemann  has  identified  as  the  site  of  Homer's 
Troy.  From  the  highest  point  of  this  elevation  one  has  a 
view  that  is  truly  entrancing.  On  the  north  is  the  Helles- 
pont— the  road,  as  the  ancients  conceived,  to  the  Cim- 
merians  and  the  Hyperboreans — with  all   its  myth   and 

10  Troy,  Its  Legend,  History  and  Literature,  p.  122  (by  S.  G.  Benjamin, 
New  York,  1916). 


THE  HELLESPONT  AND  HOMER'S  TROY    87 

legend.  To  the  west  are  the  murmurous  waters  of  the 
island-studded  ^gean.  Near  the  coast  line  is  vine-clad 
Tenedos,  whither  the  Greek  fleet  withdrew  while  the  wooden 
horse  was  being  taken  into  Troy.  Further  beyond  is  Lem- 
nos,  where  Hephsestus  is  said  to  have  fallen  when  he  was 
hurled  from  Olympus.  To  the  northwest  is  rock-ribbed 
Imbros,  and  further  afield  is  Samothrace,  from  the  tower- 
ing peak  of  which  Poseidon  looked  down  upon  Troy  during 
its  investment  by  the  Greeks.  To  the  northeast  is  the  emi- 
nence of  Callicolone,  whence  Apollo  and  Mars,  the  protec- 
tors of  Ilium,  watched  the  operations  of  the  contending 
Greek  and  Trojan  armies.  To  the  eastward  is  snow-crested 
Ida — whence  Zeus  .observed  the  combatants^whose  lofty 
pines  and  valonas 

Wave  aloft 
Their  tuneful,  scented,  dove-embowering  shade, 
And  'neath  twilight  hroods  as  gray  and  soft 
As  when  of  yore  the  shepherd  Paris  strayed 
With  glad  CEnone;  while  their  bleating  flocks 
Grazed  the  wild  thyme  bright  with  ambrosial  dew; 
And  lovers  piping  'neath  the  overshadowing  rocks 
Laded  with  love  the  breezes  as  they  flew. 

it  was  on  such  panoramas  that  Helen  was  wont  to  fix  her 
wistful  gaze — fair  Helen,  who 

Clad  in  the  beauty  of  a  thousand  stars 

launched  a  thousand  ships 
And  burnt  the  topless  towers  of  Ilium. 

Yes,  I  dreamed  as  1  had  previously  dreamed  in  Sparta,  the 
famed  abode  of  Menelaus  and  his  faithless  Helen ;  as  I  had 
dreamed  in  "gold- abounding"  MycenaB,  the  home  of  Aga- 
memnon, *'King  of  men";  as  I  had  dreamed  when  contem- 
plating desolate  Delphi,  Corinth,  and  Olympia,  their  glory 
gone  and  their  temples  in  ruins ;  as  I  had  dreamed  on  the 
summit  of  cloud-capped  Parnassus,  haunt  of  the  Muses,  and 


88   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

on  the  banks  of  the  rippling  Cephisus,  where  Plato  taught 
and  where 

Girls  and  hoys,  women  and  bearded  men 
Crowded  to  hear  and  treasure  in  their  hearts 
Matter  to  make  their  lives  a  happiness. 

At  all  these  places,  as  on  the  site  of  Troy's  citadel,  I  loved 
to  recall  the  Greeks'  love  of  beauty  and  the  marvelous 
mythopoeic  faculty  of  their  poets,  and  its  required  no  spur 
to  fancy  to  imagine  that  I  was,  for  the  moment,  in  actual 
communion  with  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  world's 
masters  of  beauty  in  art  and  literature. 

The  plain  of  Troy  [it  has  been  said]  has  been  a  battlefield 
not  only  of  heroes,  but  of  scholars  and  geographers,  and 
the  works  which  have  been  written  on  the  subject  form  a 
literature  to  themselves." 

This  is  true.  But,  however  much  students  of  the  Iliad  may 
have  disagreed  about  the  location  of  the  city  of  Priam, 
about  the  courses  of  the  Simois  and  Scamander  and  certain 
minor  details,  all  have  been  compelled  to  recognize  the 
accuracy  of  the  poet's  topographical  descriptions  and 
the  appropriateness  of  the  epithets  which  he  applies  to  the 
most  striking  features  of  the  enchanting  landscape  which 
he  so  graphically  depicts.  He  does  not,  of  course,  give  the 
numbers  and  distances,  as  some  of  his  critics  would  seem 
to  demand,  that  a  civil  engineer  would  require  for  a  con- 
tour-line map.  This  would  violate  entirely  the  most  ele- 
mentary canons  of  poetical  treatment.  But  he  does  use 
numbers  and  distances  so  far  as  they  are  necessary  to  give 
reality  to  the  action  of  the  poem.  And  though  his  realities 
are  in  the  highest  degree  idealized,  nevertheless,  so  fully 
do  they  meet  the  general  exigencies  of  time  and  place  that 
they  prove  almost  to  demonstration  that  Homer  was  thor- 


11  Highlands  of  Turkey,  Vol.  I,  p.  22  (by  H.  P.  Tozer,  London,  1869).     (2) 
Odyssey,  Vi,  51  et  seq. 


THE  HELLESPONT  AND  HOMER'S  TROY    89 

oughly  familiar  not  only  with  Troy  but  also  with  all  the 
surrounding  region." 

The  epithets  applied  by  the  poet  to  the  mountains,  islands, 
rivers,  and  other  natural  features  described  in  his  match- 
less work  show  that  he  must  have  been  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  them,  not  by  hearsay  but  by  personal  inspec- 
tion. Thus  when  he  speaks  of  the  ** rapid  current"  of  the 
Hellespont,  of  the  *  *  broad-flowing ' '  and ' '  eddying ' '  Scaman- 
der,  of  *Hhe  peak  of  lofty  Samothrace  appearing  over  the 
intervening  mass  of  Imbros,"  thus  enabling  Poseidon  to 
look  down  from  its  summit  on  the  plain  of  Troy,  we  are 
convinced  that  the  author  of  the  Iliad  had  carefully  exam- 
ined on  the  spot  the  objects  he  so  vividly  brings  before  our 
view.  And  so  it  is  in  his  graphic  delineations  of  '* lofty,'* 
*'many-fountained"  Ida,  of  *' many-crested,"  ''dazzling" 

Olympus,  the  reputed  seat 
Eternal  of  the  gods,  which  never  storms 
Disturb,  rains  drench,  or  snow  invades,  hut  calm. 

So  graphic  and  exact  indeed  are  the  epithets  and  descrip- 
tions of  Homer  that  they  far  surpass  those  of  the  later 
poets  of  Greece.  In  this  respect  he  constantly  reminds  one 
of  Dante,  that  consummate  master  of  epithet  and  of  brief 
but  most  exact  description,  who  had  the  rare  faculty  of  ex- 
pressing the  import  of  a  whole  sentence  in  a  single  word.  I 
was  then  more  than  ever  before  impressed  with  the  truth 
of  Goethe 's  words : 

Wer  den  Dichter  will  verstehen 
Muss  in  Dichier's  Lande  Gehen.  ^' 

12  So  impressed  was  Kinglake,  after  visiting  the  Trojan  plain,  with  the 
accuracy  of  the  poet's  description  of  the  most  salient  features  of  the  landscape 
that  he  declared:  "Now  I  know  that  Homer  had  passed  along  here."  Eothen, 
Chap.    IV. 

18  "He  who  would  understand  the  poet  must  visit  the  poet's  country." 
Regarding  Homer's  birthplace  an  anonymous  poet  long  ago  wrote: 

Smyrna,  Rhodos,  Colophon,  Salamis,  Chios,  Argos,  Athence, 
Orbis  de  patria  oertat,  Homere,  tua. 
But  in  whichever  of  these  place  the  immortal  bard  was  born,  if  in  any 


90   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

As  we  wandered  along  the  willow-lined  Mendere — the 
** divine"  and  ** flower-fringed "  Seamander — and  threaded 
our  way  through  clumps  of  tamarisk,  agnus  castus,  and 
odoriferous  Artemisia,  frequently  stopping  in  our  course 
to  admire  a  beautiful  lotus  or  asphodel  and  to  gaze  on 
** spring-abounding"  Ida's  heights,  whence  swift-footed  Iris 
sped  to  sacred  Ilium  at  the  command  of  aegis-bearing  Jove, 
the  question  arose  as  to  the  location  of  the  Olympus,  whence 
the  ''king  of  gods  and  men" 

Surveyed  the  walls  of  Troy,  the  ships  of  Greece, 
The  flash  of  arms,  the  slayers  and  the  slain?* 

The  doubt  was  raised  by  the  fact  there  are  in  Greece  the 
islands  of  the  ^gean  and  in  Asia  Minor  nearly  a  score  of 
peaks  and  mountain  ranges  that  bear  the  name  of  Ol5rmpus, 
and  the  further  fact  that  Olympus  is  almost  a  generic  name 
in  this  part  of  the  world  for  a  lofty  mountain  or  chain  of 
mountains.  On  the  confines  of  Mysia  and  Bithynia  and 
visible  from  the  summit  of  Ida,  which  overlooks  the  Trojan 
plain,  there  is  a  high  mountain  which  is  called  Olympus, 
which  many  writers  have  declared  to  be  the  one  on  whose 
summit  mythology  placed  the  home  of  the  gods, 

Where  Jove  convened  the  senate  of  the  skies." 

But  a  single  quotation  produced  by  the  Hellenist  of  our 
party  sufficed  to  prove  that  the  Olympus  which  Homer  had 

of  them,  it  is  quite  evident  to  even  the  casual  visitor  to  Troy  that  the  poet 
was  thoroughly  familiar  with  its  environment  which  he  describes  with 
such  marvelous  precision. 

It  Iliad,  XI,   89,  90. 

15  Thus  the  distinguished  geographer,  Elisee  Reclus,  in  speaking  of  the 
Mysian  Olympus,  says  positively:  "West  of  the  Galatian  Olympus,  this  is 
the  first  that  has  received  the  name  of  Olympus,  and  amongst  the  fifteen 
or  twenty  other  peaks  so  named,  this  has  been  chosen  by  popular  tradition 
as  the  chief  abode  of  the  gods."  The  Earth  and  Its  Inhabitants.  Asia, 
Vol.  IV,  p.  261  (New  York,  1885).  "This,"  declares  another  writer,  "is 
'the  Olympus  crowned  with  snow'  up  'whose  lofty  crags  the  everliving 
gods  mounted,  Jove  first  in  ascension.'  "  The  Sultan  and  his  subjects.  Vol. 
II,  p.  226  (by  R.  Davey,  New  York,  1897).  Cf.  also  Constantinople,  Vol.  I, 
p.  30  (by  R.  W.  Walsh,  London,  1836).  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague 
calls  the  Mysian   Olympus: 

The  Parliament  seat  of  hea/venly  powers. 


THE  HELLESPONT  AND  HOMER'S  TROY    91 

in  view  was  that  located  in  northern  Thessaly — the  Olym- 
pus on  which  Hesiod  placed  the  battle  of  the  gods  and 
Titans  and  on  which  mythology  from  the  earliest  time 
located  ' '  the  residence  of  the  dynasty  of  the  gods  of  which 
Zeus  was  the  head."  The  quotation  in  question  refers  to 
the  visit  of  Here  to  Zeus,  who  was  then  on  Mt.  Ida  observ- 
ing the  belligerents  on  the  Trojan  plain,  and  reads : 

But  Juno  down  from  high  Olympus  sped; 

O'er  sweet  Emathia  and  Pieria's  range, 

O'er  snowy  mountains  of  horse-hreeding  Thrace, 

Their  topmost  heights  she  soared,  nor  iouch'd  the  earth. 

From  Aihos  then  she  cross' d  the  swelling  sea, 

Until  to  Lemnos,  God-like  Thoas'  seat 

She  came^^ 

From  Lemnos  and  Imbros,  veiled  in  cloud,"  skimming  her 
airy  way  she  passes,  to  ** spring-abounding  Ida."  Could 
anything  indicate  more  clearly  than  this  the  relative  posi- 
tions of  Olympus  and  Troy  and  fix  more  definitely  the 
position  of  the  home  of  the  Olympian  gods  as  conceived  by 
the  sovereign  poet  of  Greece? 

Although  I  had  always  been  specially  interested  in  Greek 
archaBology  I  felt  no  inclination,  during  my  short  visit  to 
Troy,  to  indulge  my  taste  for  archasological  pursuits.  I 
was  satisfied  to  accept  the  conclusions  of  Schliemann  and 
Dorpfeld  and  Virchow  respecting  the  location  of  Ilium 
and  the  bearing  of  their  discoveries  on  the  reality  of  Homer 
and  the  Trojan  war.  And,  as  I  roamed  the  plain  on  which 
the  Greek  army  was  encamped,  I  could  not  help  hoping  that 
further  investigation  would  prove  that  the  startling  dis- 
coveries of  Schliemann  at  Mycense  would  remove  the  last 
vestiges  of  doubt  regarding  the  actual  existence  of  Aga- 
memnon and  Cassandra."    This  would  be  a  tangible  proof 

"Ibid.,    XIV,    251-257. 

17  Ibid.,  XIV,  317. 

18  Mr.  Gladstone,  that  enthusiastic  student  of  Homer  and  of 

"Immortal  Greece,  dear  land  of  glorious  lays," 
in  his  preface  to  Dr.  Schliemann's  notable  work  on  Mycense  does  not  hesitate 
to  declare:    "There  is  no  preliminary  bar  to  our  entertaining  the  capital 


92   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

of  the  reality  of  at  least  one  of  Homer's  heroes.  It  would, 
too,  be  a  most  interesting  contribution  to  the  Homeric  ques- 
tion and  would  be  specially  gratifying  to  those  who,  in  spite 
of  certain  modern  critics,  have  unfalteringly  clung  to  the 
views  concerning  Homer,  Troy,  and  the  Iliad  which  have 
universally  prevailed  since  the  days  of  Aristarchus  and 
the  Homeridae. 

The  blind  bard  of  Chios  then  is  to-day,  as  he  always  has 
been,  as  he  always  will  be  so  long  as  men  shall  love  supreme 
excellence  in  letters,  a  living  personality  whose  wonderful 
epics  have  exercised  a  wider  and  a  more  potent  influence 
on  the  intellectual  progress  of  our  race  than  all  other  epics 
combined.  No  books,  except  perhaps  those  of  the  Bible, 
have  been  more  frequently  quoted  nor  have  any  re- 
ceived more  attention  from  poets,  orators,  dramatists,  and 
lovers  of  the  noblest  models  of  literary  style. 

Another  remarkable  fact  is  the  gift  of  immortality  which 
Homer,  with  Jovelike  power,  has  conferred  upon  his 
heroes.  Although  but  the  creations  of  the  poet's  genius, 
they  stand  forth  to-day,  men  of  flesh  and  blood,  in  all  the 
vigor  and  freshness  which  characterized  them  thirty  cen- 
turies ago.  And  there  never  have  been  among  the  children 
of  men  any  who  are  better  known,  or  whose  names  more 
frequently  occur  in  song  and  story  than  the  undying  char- 
acters of  the  Odyssey  and  the  Iliad.  These  facts  impress 
every  lover  of  Homer  as  he  surveys  the  plain  of  Troy  from 

question  whether  the  tombs  now  unearthed  and  the  remains  exposed  to  view 
are  the  tombs  and  remains  of  the  great  Agamemnon  or  his  compeers  who 
have  enjoyed  through  the  agency  of  Homer  such  a  protracted  longevity  of 
renown.  .  .  .  The  conjecture  is  that  these  may  very  well  be  the  tombs  of 
Agamemnon  and  his  company." 

Dr.  Schliemann,  writing  on  the  same  subject,  tells  us:  "I  have  never 
doubted  that  a  King  of  Mycenae,  by  name  Agamemnon,  his  charioteer  Eury- 
medon,  a  princess  Cassandra  and  their  followers  were  treacherously  murdered 
either  by  ^Egisthus  at  a  banquet,  'like  an  ox  at  the  manger,'  as  Homer 
says,  or  in  the  bath  by  Clytemnestra,  as  the  later  tragic  poets  represent; 
and  I  firmly  believed  that  the  murdered  persons  had  been  interred  in  the 
A.cropolis"  of  Mycenae.  .  .  .  "My  firm  faith  in  the  traditions  made  me 
undertake  my  late  excavations  in  the  Acropolis  and  led  to  the  discovery 
of  the  five  tombs  with  their  immense  treasures."  Mycence;  a  'Narrative  of 
Researches  and  Discoveries  at  Mycence  and  Tyryns,  pp.  334,  335  (London, 
1878). 


THE  HELLESPONT  AND  HOMER'S  TROY    93 

the  spot  on  which  stood  the  Pergamus  and  recollects  the 
achievements  of  the  blind  bard's  heroes  during  the  ten  long 
years  of  the  Trojan  war. 

And,  like  Achilles  and  Agamemnon,  Priam  and  Hector, 
the  Troy  of  Homer  also  is  immortal.  Notwithstanding  the 
efforts  of  a  jealous  Demetrius  or  an  ill-informed  Le 
Chevalier  to  transfer  the  glory  of  Troy  to  some  other  local- 
ity, its  claims,  as  Schliemann  has  shown,  still  stand  on 
as  firm  a  basis  as  ever.    Yes,  of  a  truth, 

Thou  livest,  O  Troy,  forever  unto  men. 

All  to  the  magic  of  that  world-sung  song, 

That  god-breathed  legend  dost  thou  owe  thy  fame; 
The  golden  weft  the  blind  man  wove  so  long. 

Hath  linked  to  immortality  thy  name. 
His  tale  to  many  another's  lyre  hath  given 

Its  stirring  echoes;  and  in  every  age 
What  story  more  than  of  thy  woes  hath  riven 

Their  hearts  who  dream  upon  the  poet 's  page. 
And  though  for  long  thou  in  the  dust  hast  lain, 

Still,  still  the  visions  of  the  mighty  past, 
The  memory  of  thy  struggle,  and  thy  pain, 

Thy  god-built  turrets, — these  forever  last. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS 

Have  Time's  stern  scythe,  man's  rage  and  flood  and  fire 

Left  naught  for  curious  pilgrims  to  admire? 

A  few  poor  footsteps  may  now  cross  the  shrine, 

Cell,  long  arcade,  high  altar,  all  supine; 

Bound  with  thick  ivy  broken  columns  lie, 

Through  low  rent  circles  winds  of  evening  sigh. 

Rough  brambles  choke  the  vaults  where  gold  was  stored. 

And  toads  spit  venom  forth  where  priests  adored. 

Nicolas  Michel. 

Our  next  side  trip,  after  visiting  Troy,  was  a  short  ex- 
cursion to  Brusa  which — partly  by  steamer  and  partly  by 
rail — is  easily  accessible  from  Constantinople.  I  was  espe- 
cially eager  to  see  this  famous  place,  for  its  historic  associa- 
tions are  numerous  and  varied.  It  was  to  Brusa — anciently 
Prusa — that  Hannibal  fled  after  his  defeat  by  the  Eomans. 
There  are  indeed,  some  authorities  who  maintain  that  the 
great  Carthaginian  general  was  the  founder  of  Brusa.  It 
was  from  this  city,  which  was  once  large  and  prosperous, 
that  Pliny  the  Younger,  while  governor  of  Bithynia,  wrote 
his  celebrated  letter  to  Trajan,  in  which  he  asked  for  in- 
structions concerning  the  policy  to  be  pursued  regarding 
**the  stubborn  sect  of  Christians"  who  were  then  rapidly 
increasing  in  numbers  and  who,  by  refusing  to  offer  sac- 
rifices to  the  gods  and  by  persistently  avoiding  all  pagan 
rites  and  observances,  had  made  themselves  specially 
obnoxious  to  Roman  officialdom.  This  letter  ^  is  remark- 
able as  being  one  of  the  first  notices  in  Roman  writers 
respecting  the  members  of  that  incipient  Church  which  was 
eventually  to  become  mistress  of  the  capital  of  Caesars. 

1  Plinii  Epistulae  No.  97.     "Nequi  enim  dubitabam,  gualecumque  esset  quod 
faterentur,  pertinaciam  certe   et  inflexibilem   obstinationem  debere  puniri." 

94 


THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS     95 

In  Ottoman  history  Brusa  is  notable  for  having  been  the 
capital  of  Orkhan,  the  second  ruler  of  the  Osmanlis  and 
for  having  long  been  the  favorite  resort  of  Moslem  schol- 
ars, artists,  poets,  and  dervishes  who  enjoyed  a  great  repu- 
tation among  their  coreligionists  for  their  reputed  sanctity. 
And  even  after  the  transfer  of  the  Ottoman  capital  to  Adri- 
anople  and  subsequently  to  Constantinople,  Brusa  continued 
to  be  one  of  the  sacred  cities  of  the  Mohammedans.  For 
here  were  buried  the  first  six  Osmanli  sovereigns  besides 
more  than  a  score  of  Ottoman  princes  and  here  **more  than 
five  hundred  pashas,  theologians,  teachers,  and  poets  sleep 
their  last  sleep  around  their  first  Padishas."  Among  the 
turbehs  which  particularly  impressed  me  was  that  of  the 
Serbian  princess  who,  although  the  wife  of  a  Sultan,  was 
able  to  preserve  untainted  the  religion  of  her  Christian 
parents.  Here  were  erected  numerous  medresses — col- 
leges— mosques  and  public  buildings  whose  size  and  gran- 
deur were  for  centuries  a  favorite  theme  of  Moslem  poets 
and  historians.  In  beauty  of  design,  richness  of  material, 
and  exquisite  finish  some  of  the  mosques — especially  the 
renowned  Green  Mosque — are  even  to-day  regarded  as  the 
most  perfect  specimens  of  Osmanli  architecture. 

Our  visit  to  Brusa  was  most  enjoyable  and  was  an  ideal 
introduction  to  our  long  journey  through  the  Ottoman  pos- 
sessions in  Asia.  For  in  this  old  capital  of  the  sultans  we 
find  more  strikingly  exhibited  than  in  noisy,  metropolitan 
Constantinople  those  dominant  characteristics  of  most 
Asiatic  cities — apathetic  immobility,  undisturbed  quietude, 
and  dreamy  repose. 

But  before  taking  the  train  at  Haidar  Pasha  we  spent  a 
day  in  wandering  through  Scutari  and  Kadi  Keui  which 
are  just  across  the  Bosphorus  from  Stamboul.  Like  Brusa 
both  of  these  places — especially  Scutari — are  distinctively 
Oriental  in  character  and  are  well  worthy  of  a  visit.  Both 
of  them,  too,  have  played  prominent  roles  in  the  long,  his- 
toric past  and,  although  they  are  now  so  overshadowed  by 
the  great  city  of  Constantine,  they,  nevertheless,  offer  many 


96   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

attractions  that  are  well  worthy  of  the  attention  of  the 
student  and  the  historian. 

Scutari  was  formerly  known  as  Chrysopolis — the  Golden 
City.  Its  special  attractions  for  tourists  are  the  Howling 
Dervishes,  whose  peculiar  devotional  exercises  take  place 
every  Thursday,  and  the  Great  Cemetery  which  is  cele- 
brated as  the  largest  and  most  beautiful  Moslem  of  burying 
places.  It  is  a  great  forest  of  cypress  trees,  more  than 
three  miles  in  length.  Each  grave  has  its  tombstone, 
usually  a  very  modest  one.  Some  of  the  epitaphs  I  ob- 
served were  very  touching,  especially  those  that  terminated 
with  a  prayer  that  a  Fatihah — the  first  chapter  of  the 
Koran — ^might  be  said  for  the  soul  of  the  deceased. 

This  chapter  [writes  Sale,  the  learned  translator  of  the 
Koran]  ?s  a  prayer  and  held  in  great  veneration  by  the 
Mohammedans.  .  .  .  They  esteem  it  as  the  quintessence  of 
the  whole  Koran,  and  often  repeat  it  in  their  devotions, 
both  public  and  private,  as  the  Christians  do  the  Lord's 
Prayer.^ 

It  is  an  integral  part  of  each  of  the  five  daily  prayers 
which  are  said  by  every  good  Mussulman.  It  is,  moreover, 
recited  over  the  sick,  at  the  conclusion  of  an  action  of  im- 
portance, but  it  is,  above  all,  the  favorite  prayer  for  the 
repose  of  the  soul  of  the  departed  taking,  in  this  respect, 
the  place  of  the  Catholic  requiescat.  As  translated  by 
Rodwell  it  reads : 

Praise  be  to  God,  Lord  of  the  Worlds! 

The  compassionate,  the  merciful! 

King  on  the  day  of  reckoning! 

Thee  only  do  we  worship,  and  to  Thee  do  we  cry  for  help. 

Guide  Thou  us  on  the  straight  path, 

The  path  of  those  to  whom  Thou  has  teen  gracious; — with 

Whom  Thou  art  not  angry,  and  who  go  not  astray. 

As  we  wandered  along  the  pathways  of  this  last  resting 
place  of  so  many  myriads  of  Mohammedans — from  Con- 

2  The  Koran:  Commonly  called  the  Alcoran  of  Mohammed,  p.  I  (Phila- 
delphia,   1870). 


THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS     97 

stantinople '  as  well  as  from  Scutari — I  was  impressed  by 
the  number  of  men  and  women  who  were  here  absorbed 
in  prayer  for  their  dear  departed,*  or  in  tending  the  flowers 
which  adorned  the  graves.  These  quiet  mourners,  with  the 
countless  turtledoves,  which  make  their  home  in  the 
branches  of  the  funereal  cypress  trees  and  which  seem  to 
keep  up  continuously  their  subdued  moan,  give  to  this 
gloomy  necropolis  a  solemnity  and  an  impressiveness  that 
are  almost  lacking  in  such  ostentatious  cities  of  the  dead 
as  Pere  Lachaise  and  the  Campo  Santo  of  Genoa. 

A  short  drive  from  the  Great  Cemetery  brings  us  to  the 
modern  town  of  Kadi  Keui  which,  like  Scutari,  is  also  a  part 
of  the  municipality  of  Constantinople.  It  was  formerly 
known  as  Chalcedon  and  was  founded  seventeen  years  be- 
fore Byzantium.  By  the  oracle  of  Delphi  it  was  designated 
as  ''the  city  of  the  blind,"  because  its  founders  were  blind 
to  the  superior  position  of  the  tongue  of  land  on  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  Bosphorus,  on  which  the  City  of  Constan- 
tinople now  stands. 

Like  most  other  cities  in  this  part  of  the  world  it  has 
witnessed  many  vicissitudes  and  has  been  repeatedly  cap- 
tured and  sacked  by  invading  armies  from  both  Asia  and 
Europe.  Famed  in  antiquity  for  its  temple  of  Apollo  and 
for  having  been  the  birthplace  of  Xenocrates,  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  Plato's  disciples,  its  temples  and  palaces, 
after  its  capture  by  the  Ottomans,  served  the  sultans  as  a 


8  The  reason  why  the  Ottoman  whose  home  is  on  the  West  of  the  Bosphorus 
desires  to  be  buried  in  the  cemetery  of  Scutaria  is  that  "he  considers  himself 
a  stranger  and  a  sojourner  in  Europe  and  the  Moslem  of  Constantinople  turns 
his  last  lingering  look  to  this  Asiatic  cemetery  where  his  remains  will  not 
be  disturbed  when  the  Giaour  regains  possession  of  this  European  city,  an 
event  which  he  is  firmly  convinced  will  sometime  come  to  pass  Thus  the 
dying  Turk  feels  a  yearning  for  his  native  soil;  like  Joseph  in  the  land  of 
Egypt  he  exacts  a  promise  from  his  people  that  'they  would  carry  his  bones 
hence'  and  like  Jacob,  says  'bury  me  in  my  grave  which  1  have  in  the  land 
of  Canaan.'"     Constantinople,  p.  13    (by  R.  Walsh.  London.  1836). 

4  Mohammed  enjoined  his  followers  to  visit  graveyards  frequently  "Visit 
graves,"  he  says,  for  "of  a  verity  they  shall  make  you  think  of  futurity." 
Again,  he  declares:  "Whoso  visiteth  the  graves  of  his  two  parents  every 
Friday,  or  one  of  the  two,  he  shall  be  written  a  pious  child,  even  though  he 
might  have  been  in  the  world,  before  that,  disobedient  to  them." 


98   FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

stone  quarry  when  they  required  building  material  for  their 
mosques  in  Constantinople. 

But,  although  not  a  vestige  of  Chalcedon's  former 
grandeur  now  remains,  it  will  always  be  remembered  as  the 
city  in  which  was  held  in  451  the  fourth  oecumenical  council 
of  the  Church,  in  which  was  condemned  the  teaching  of 
Eutyches  and  the  Monophysites  respecting  the  human  and 
the  divine  nature  in  Christ.  When  I  recalled  the  fact  that 
this  council,  including  the  representatives  of  the  absent 
bishops,  was  attended  by  six  hundred  and  thirty  bishops; 
that  more  than  six  hundred  of  these  belonged  to  the  Eastern 
Church,  and  remembered  the  very  small  number  of  the  epis- 
copate that  is  now  found  in  this  part  of  the  world,  it  was 
easy  to  understand  the  present  backward  condition  of  civi- 
lization and  culture  in  Asia  Minor  and  Syria.  What  a 
change,  indeed,  since  the  days  of  those  great  doctors  of  the 
Oriental  Church — the  Cyrils,  the  Gregories,  the  Basils,  the 
Ephrems,  the  Chrysostoms — ^whose  learning  and  eloquence 
have  from  their  time  been  the  admiration  and  edification 
of  the  whole  of  Christendom. 

A  short  distance  to  the  north  of  Kadi  Keui  is  the  Haidar 
Pasha  military  hospital  which  was  the  scene  of  Florence 
Nightingale 's  heroic  labors  during  the  Crimean  War.  The 
rooms  which  she  occupied  while  here  are  still  preserved 
intact  and  as  I  passed  through  them,  I  recalled  Longfellow's 
beautiful  tribute  to  her  in  the  verses : 

A  Lady  with  a  Lamp  shall  stand 
In  the  great  history  of  the  land, 
A  noble  type  of  good. 
Heroic  womanhood. 

Nor  even  shall  he  wanting  here 
The  palm,  the  lily  and  the  spear. 
The  symbols  that  of  yore 
Saint  Philomena  bore.^ 

B  The  world  has  long  admired  the  noble  qualities  of  heart  and  mind  of 
Florence  Nightingale  but  admiration  for  her  has  been  greatly  enhanced  by 
the  recent  publication  of  certain  letters  of  hers,  previously  unknown,  which 


THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS     99 

It  is  but  a  few  minutes '  walk  from  Florence  Nightingale's 
hospital  to  the  Haidar  Pasha  railway  station.  On  the  way 
thither  we  passed  through  the  well-kept  British  Cemetery 
where  rest  eight  thousand  British  soldiers  who  died  of 
wounds  and  disease  during  the  Crimean  War.  The  large 
granite  obelisk  here  by  Marochetti  is  a  conspicuous  object 
and  is  visible  at  a  great  distance.  The  Haidar  Pasha  sta- 
tion, the  northwestern  terminus  of  the  Anatolia  *  Railway 
was,  before  its  partial  destruction  during  the  war,  a  most 
imposing  building  and  compared  favorably  with  the  best 
of  similar  structures  in  Europe. 

Shortly  after  we  take  a  seat  in  a  cozy  corridor  car  our 
train  swings  towards  the  picturesque  shore  of  the  Mar- 
mora. From  the  window  of  our  compartment  we  have 
the  most  lovely  views  of  the  Princes  Islands,  and  of  the 
quaint  little  fishing  villages  which  sprinkle  the  eastern  shore 
of  the  Marmora  and  which  are  so  perfectly  mirrored  in  its 
placid  waters.  For  hours,  as  our  train  moves  alternately 
along  the  verge  of  lofty  cliffs  and  near  the  level  of  the 
emerald  expanse  of  the  Propontis,  we  have  a  succession  of 

she  wrote  to  one  of  her  associates  in  the  care  of  the  sick  and  wounded  soldiers 
of  the  Crimean  War.  I  reproduce  a  part  of  one  of  which  she  addressed  to 
the  Mother  Superior  of  a  band  of  Catholic  sisters  who  were  her  collabora- 
tors in  the  great  work  of  mercy  to  which  she  devoted  herself  with  such 
sublime  self-abnegation: 

"Your  going,"  she  writes,  "la  the  greatest  blow  I  have  yet  had.  But 
God's  blessing  and  my  love  and  gratitude  go  with  you,  as  you  well  know. 
You  know  well,  too,  that  I  shall  do  everything  I  can  for  the  Sisters  whom 
you  have  left  me.  But  it  will  not  be  like  you.  Your  wishes  will  be  our 
law.  And  I  shall  try  to  remain  in  the  Crimea  for  their  sakes  as  long 
as  any  of  us  are  here.  I  do  not  presume  to  express  praise  or  gratitude  to 
you.  Reverend  Mother,  because  it  would  look  as  if  I  thought  you  had  done 
the  work  not  unto  God  but  unto  me.  You  were  far  above  me  in  fitness  for 
the  General  Superintendency,  both  in  wordly  talent  of  administration,  and 
far  more  in  the  spiritual  qualifications  which  God  values  in  a  superior.  The 
being  placed  over  you  in  our  unenviable  reign  in  the  East  was  my  misfortune 
and  not  my  fault.  Dearest  Reverend  Mother  what  you  have  done  for  the 
work  no  one  can  ever  say.  But  God  rewards  you  for  it  with  Himself.  If 
I  thought  that  your  valuable  health  would  be  restored  by  a  return  home, 
I  should  not  regret  it.  My  love  and  gratitude  will  be  yours  wherever  you 
go.  1  do  not  presume  to  give  you  any  tribute  but  my  tears."  The  letter  con- 
dudes  with  the  words,  "The  gratitude  of  the  Army  is  yours."  Dublin  Review, 
October.  1917. 

«  Anatolia  is  from  the  Greek  word  'AKaToXn-  which,  like  the  Latin  Oriens, 
signifies  the  eastern  land,  the  land  of  sunrise.  It  is  the  modern  name  of  Asia 
Minor  which  the  Ottomans  call  Anadoli. 


100  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

panoramas  that  are  scarcely  less  fascinating  than  those 
seen  along  the  famous  driveway  between  Sorrento  and 
Amalfi. 

The  dancing  waves  of  the  Marmora,  as  they  gently  lap 
along  its  curving  shore,  are  as  soothing  as  a  lullaby  to  a 
cradled  child.  And  all  the  while  they  are  murmuring  the 
same  old  story  that  greeted  the  ears  of  the  seafaring 
Megarians  as  they  passed  by  nearly  three  thousand  years 
ago  and  which  reached  the  crews  of  the  trim  Venetian  argo- 
sies whose  arms  proudly  floated  on  their  flags  and  pennants 
as  they  conveyed  the  treasures  of  India  and  China  from 
the  ports  of  the  Euxine  to  the  gem-blue  haven  of  the  peer- 
less Queen  of  the  Adriatic.  The  noonday  sun,  playing  over 
the  rippling  waters,  changes  them  in  rapid  succession  from 
the  delicate  color  of  the  lapis  lazuli  to  the  scintillating 
iridescence  of  the  opal. 

Along  the  coast  line  one  contemplates  with  ever-increas- 
ing delight  countless  views  of  entrancing  beauty  and  inter- 
est— gray  moss-covered  rocks  which  are  ever  of  tender 
loveliness  and  reposeful  silence ;  trembling  vines  and  wav- 
ing figs  and  olives  and  oranges ;  picturesque  adobe  cottages 
adorned  with  graceful  creepers;  romping  children  who 
make  the  air  ring  with  their  joyous  shouts ;  men  and  women 
in  the  most  colorful  garbs  quietly  performing  their  daily 
tasks  and  all  the  while  completely  immune  from  the  fever- 
ish haste  that  so  distracts  the  toiling  millions  of  Europe 
and  America  and  converts  their  life  into  a  long  and  troubled 
nightmare.  The  secret  is  that  the  normal  Osmanli  peas- 
ant is  satisfied  with  little.  Permit  him  to  cultivate  his  small 
plot  of  ground  in  peace  and  to  remain  undisturbed  in  the 
bosom  of  his  family  and  he  is  perfectly  happy.  Under 
such  conditions  he  would  find  nothing  to  envy  even  in  the 
lot  of  the  denizens  of  the  Happy  Valley. 

On  our  arrival  at  Ismid  we  were  reminded  that  we  were 
traveling  over  classic  ground.  For  this  small  Turkish 
town  was  under  the  Roman  Empire  one  of  the  largest  cities 
in  Asia  Minor.    It  was  here  that  Diocletian  had  his  seat 


THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS     101 

of  Government ;  it  was  here  that  he  began  his  sanguinary 
persecutions  against  the  Christians  and  it  was  here  that 
he  abdicated  the  throne.  It  was  in  his  imperial  villa  near 
here  that  death  claimed  Constantine  the  Great  and  it  was 
in  a  neighboring  castle  that  Hannibal  committed  suicide. 
And  Nicomedia  was  the  birthplace  of  Arrian,  the  illustri- 
ous disciple  of  Epictetus,  who,  from  notes  of  his  master's 
lectures,  prepared  the  famed  Discourses  of  Epictetus.  He 
also  wrote  the  scarcely  less  celebrated  Anabasis  of  Alex- 
ander the  Great. 

Our  first  stop,  however,  was  at  the  little  town  of  Lefke 
where  we  found  waiting  for  us  an  araha  which  we  had 
ordered  the  day  previously  to  take  us  to  Isnik — about  four 
hours'  drive  from  the  railroad — which  is  but  a  small  vil- 
lage of  mud  houses,  but  which  during  Eoman  and  Byzan- 
tine times  was,  under  the  name  of  Nicsea,  the  rival  of  Nico- 
media. Even  while  in  the  possession  of  the  Sultans  of 
Rum  it  was  as  a  center  of  art,  poetry,  and  science  scarcely 
less  renowned  than  Cordova  and  Bagdad.  And  while  Con- 
stantinople was  in  tHe  possession  of  the  Latins,  after  its 
capture  by  the  Crusaders,  Nicssa  served  as  the  temporary 
capital  of  the  Byzantine  Empire. 

There  are  few  places  in  Anatolia  which  make  a  stronger 
appeal  to  the  student  than  the  ancient  city  of  Nicaea.  Its 
ivy  and  fern-covered  ruins,  walls,  baths,  theaters,  churches, 
mosques,  towers,  gates,  aqueducts,  sarcophagi,  bas-reliefs, 
and  inscriptions  of  all  kinds  are  in  the  highest  degree  inter- 
esting and  offer  a  mine  of  most  precious  material  for  the 
antiquary  or  the  historian. 

To  us  Nic£ea  was  a 

Relic  of  nobler  days  and  noblest  arts, 

and,  as  we  wandered  among  the  ruin- covered  streets  of  the 
once  famous  city,  we  seemed  to  hear  the  monitory  words 

Lightly  tread,  'tis  hallowed  ground.  ,> 


102  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

But  my  object  in  visiting  this  famous  place  was  not 
knowledge  so  much  as  impressions.  I  was  attracted  thither 
by  the  same  magnet  that  drew  me  to  Troy  and  Chalcedon. 
I  wished  to  get  the  local  color  and  secure  a  local  picture  of 
a  place  which  has  filled  an  important  page  in  history  and 
which  for  centuries  was  the  goal  of  contending  armies — 
Asiatics  and  Europeans,  Moslems  and  Christians.  But  the 
predominant  reason  for  my  visit  to  this  scene  of  ruins  was 
the  fact  that  it  had  been  a  witness  of  two  of  the  Church's 
most  noted  oecumenical  councils. 

The  first  council  which  was  held  here  in  325  was  likewise 
the  first  General  Council  of  the  Church.  It  is  noted  for 
its  condemnation  of  Arianism  and  for  the  formation  of  the 
Nicene  Creed  which,  as  subsequently  amplified  by  the  Coun- 
cil of  Constantinople,  has  ever  since  been  the  symbol  of 
faith  used  not  only  by  the  Catholic  Church  but  also  by  those 
Eastern  Churches  which  are  no  longer  in  communion  with 
Rome  and  by  many  of  the  Protestant  Churches  as  well. 

In  the  second  council  of  Nicsea,  which  was  the  seventh  of 
the  Church's  general  councils  and  which  convened  in  787, 
was  condemned  the  doctrine  of  the  Iconoclasts,  which  so 
long  agitated  the  Eastern  Church  and  which  was  the  cause 
of  so  many  relentless  persecutions  throughout  the  whole 
of  the  Byzantine  Empire.  Even  Moslems,  who  regard 
every  kind  of  representation  of  the  human  form  as  an 
execrable  idol,  could  not  have  been  more  fanatical  and  piti- 
less in  their  dealings  with  anti-Iconoclasts  than  were  Leo 
the  Isaurian,  who  was  suspected  of  favoring  Islamism,  and 
his  son  Constantine  Copronymus.  During  their  reigns,  not 
to  speak  of  those  of  several  of  their  successors,  the  churches 
of  the  Byzantine  Empire  were  as  bare  of  images  and  statues 
as  were  the  mosques  of  Medina  and  Damascus.^ 

By  a  peculiar  combination  of  events  it  fell  to  the  lot  of 
two  women — the  Empresses  Irene  and  Theodora — to  undo 

7  For  an  interesting  account  of  the  two  (Ecumenical  councils  of  Nicsea  see 
Hefele's  scholarly  Histoire  des  Conciles,  Tom.  I,  Livre  II  and  Tom.  Ill,  Livre 
XVIII   (trans,  by  Dom  H.  Leclercq,  Paris,  1910). 


THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  103 

the  work  of  the  Iconoclastic  emperors  and  to  put  a  stop  to 
the  persecutions  which  had  caused  the  exile,  the  imprison- 
ment, or  the  death  of  countless  numbers  of  the  noblest  men 
and  women  of  the  empire,  whose  only  offense  was  fidelity 
to  the  faith  of  their  fathers. 

Few  things  in  Anatolia  are  more  competent  to  awaken 
memories  of  the  past  glories  of  Asia  Minor  than  a  visit  to 
the  spot  that  on  two  momentous  occasions  witnessed  the 
assemblage  of  hundreds  of  bishops  from  both  the  Orient 
and  the  Occident.  What  a  contrast  between  the  present 
condition  of  Nicaea  and  that  at  the  time  when  the  assembled 
fathers  subscribed  to  that  creed  which  has  ever  since  been 
accepted  as  the  symbol  of  faith  of  nearly  the  whole  of 
Christendom ! 

In  Asia  Minor  alone  there  were,  in  the  fifth  century,  no 
fewer  than  four  hundred  and  fifty  episcopal  sees.  And  an 
imperial  law  was  enacted  that  every  city  should  have  its 
own  bishop — unaquceque  civitas  proprium  episcopum 
haheto.^  But  what  a  change  has  come  over  this  once  flour- 
ishing portion  of  the  Christian  Church.  The  famous  cities 
— Nicaea,  Chalcedon,  and  Ephesus — in  which  four  general 
councils  were  held  and  which  in  Roman  times  were  all 
capitals  of  provinces — have  long  since  been  reduced  to 
ruins.  So  completely,  indeed,  had  Ephesus  disappeared 
from  sight  that  little  was  known  even  about  its  topography 
until  the  Austrian  Archaeological  Institute  began  its  exca- 
vations there  but  little  more  than  two  decades  ago. 

And  so  it  is  throughout  the  length  and  the  breadth  of 
Anatolia.*    Great  and  popular  cities,  which,  in  the  heyday 

8(7/.  The  Historical  Geography  of  Asia  Minor,  p.  93  (by  W.  M.  Ramsay, 
London,  1890). 

8  "The  fate  of  these  cities,"  observes  a  recent  traveler  in  Anatolia,  "is  that 
of  numerous  others  whose  names  are  a  part  of  classic  history.  Everywhere 
throughout  Asia  Minor  decaying  ruins  mark  the  sites  where  art  and  culture 
were  united  with  barbaric  power.  Everywhere  are  evidences  of  past  refine- 
ment, splendor  and  greatness.  And  over  all  the  prostrate  columns  and  broken 
entablatures,  the  domed  mosques  and  black-green  cypresses,  the  fertile  valleys 
and  the  great  desert,  the  dark-visaged  men  and  the  silent,  veiled  women  lingers 
the  spell,  undefinable  but  wondrously  fascinating,  of  Asia;  the  cradle  of  the 
human  race,  the  land  of  luxurious  magnificence,  the  abode  of  mighty  empires 
that  rose  and  crumbled  long  before  the  western  world  had  emerged  from  dark- 


104  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

of  the  Roman  Empire  were  noted  for  their  splendid  tem- 
ples, baths,  gymnasia,  colonnades,  Greek  theaters,  and 
Roman  amphitheaters,  which  were  all  graced  by  master- 
pieces of  art  in  marble  and  bronze — frequently  replicas  of 
matchless  Greek  originals — are  now  either  entirely  deserted 
or  tenanted  by  a  few  nomadic  shepherds  or  poor  tillers  of 
the  soil  whose  only  homes  are  small  mud  hovels  that  barely 
protect  them  from  the  elements. 

Cicero's  lament  over  the  desolate  cities  of  Greece  may 
everywhere  be  reechoed  by  the  traveler  in  ruin-covered 
Anatolia.  This  is  particularly  true  of  that  part  of  the  coun- 
try once  known  as  Ionia.  In  literature,  art,  history, 
philosophy,  she  long  vied  with  Attica  herself.  For,  among 
her  distinguished  sons  are  Homer  Anacreon  of  Teos,  Mim- 
nermus,  Apelles,  Parrhasius  and  Herodotus,  the  Father  of 
History.  And  in  her  once  flourishing  capital,  Miletus, 
whose  site  is  now  occupied  by  the  fever-stricken  village  of 
Palatia,  lived  that  galaxy  of  philosophers — Thales,  Anaxi- 
mander,  and  Anaximenes.  Here  the  geographers,  Heca- 
taeus  and  Aristagoras  planned  the  earliest  known  charts. 
Here,  too,  was  the  birthplace  of  the  rarely  gifted  Aspasia 
whose  home  in  Athens,  after  she  became  the  wife  of 
Pericles,  is  celebrated  in  history  as  the  first  and  most 
famous  salon  the  world  has  ever  known.^** 

In  Ionia  originated  that  brilliant  and  highly  intellectual 
society  which  a  French  writer  has  happily  named  le  prin-> 
temps  de  la  Grece. 

For  even  in  the  face  of  recent  discoveries  in  Sparta 
[writes  a  distinguished  Orientalist],  it  may  be  said  without 
hesitation  that  the  Greeks  of  western  Asia  Minor  produced 
the  first  full-bloom  of  what  we  call  pure  Hellenism,  that  is 
a  Greek  civilization  come  to  full  consciousness  of  itself  and 
destined  to  attain  the  highest  possibilities  of  the  Hellenic 

ness;  the  birth-place,  too,  of  p.ubtle  mysticism  and  of  every  religion  that 
has  soothed  the  soul  in  anguish  and  comforted  it  with  hope."  Asia  Minor, 
p.  317  (by  W.  A.  Hawly,  London,  1918). 

10  See  the  author's  Woman  in  Science,  p.  12  et  seq.  (New  York,  1913). 


THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  105 

genius.  Whatever  its  claim  to  absolute  priority  in  culture, 
however,  the  Ionian  section  of  the  Hellenic  race  from  the 
accident  of  geographical  position  served  more  than  any- 
other  for  a  vital  link  between  East  and  West,  and  imposed 
its  individual  name  on  Oriental  terminology  as  the  designa- 
tion of  the  whole  Greek  people.  All  who  follow  the  devel- 
opment of  free  social  institutions  must  regard  with  peculiar 
interest  the  land  where  the  city-State  of  Hellenic  type  first 
grew  to  adolescence.  Students  not  only  of  literature,  but 
of  all  the  means  of  communication  between  man  and  man, 
know  that  it  was  in  Ionia  that  the  alphabet  took  the  final 
shape  in  which  the  Greeks  were  to  carry  it  about  the  civil- 
ized world.  And  who  that  belongs  to,  or  cares  for,  the 
republic  of  art  would  ignore  that  "bel  elan  de  genie  duquel 
est  ne  la  statuaire  attique"?  " 

Nor  were  the  islands  which  fringed  Ionia  less  prolific 
in  famous  men  and  women  than  was  the  mainland.  Suffice 
it  to  mention  Cos,  where  Hippocrates,  the  oracle  of  physi- 
cians and  ''The  Father  of  Medicine,"  first  saw  the  light 
of  day  and  Lesbos,  the  birthplace  of  Alcaeus  and  Sappho, 
the  first  of  whom  stands  in  the  forefront  of  Greek  lyric 
poets,  while  the  second  enjoyed  the  unique  distinction  of 
being  called  "The  Poetess"  as  Homer  was  called  "The 
Poet." 

But  where  Homer,  Sappho,  and  Alcaeus  lived  and  labored 
and  where  once  their  immortal  works  were  used  as  text- 
books in  the  schools  of  Asia  Minor;  where  Zeuxis  and 
Appelles  and  Parrhasius  were  surrounded  by  crowds  of 
admiring  pupils;  where  Hippocrates  and  Galen  of  Per- 
gamon,  long  the  supreme  authorities  in  medical  science, 
were  born;  where  Hipparchus  of  Nicasa,  founder  of  scien- 
tific astronomy,  first  became  famous;  where  Aristarchus 


11  Ionia  and  the  East,  pp.  8,  9  (by  D  G.  Hogarth.  Oxford,  1907).  Another 
eminent  Orientalist,  H.  R.  Hall,  expresses  substantially  the  same  view  when 
he  tells  us  that  "It  was  in  Ionia  that  the  new  Greek  civilization  arose;  Ionia, 
in  whom  the  old  .^gean  blood  and  spirit  most  survived,  taught  the  new  Greece, 
gave  her  coined  money  and  letters,  art  and  poesy,  and  her  shipmen.  forcing 
the  Phoenicians  from  before  them,  carried  her  new  culture  to  what  were  then 
deemed  the  ends  of  the  earth  "  The  Andent  History  of  the  Near  East  from 
the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Battle  of  Salamis,  p.  79  (London,  1916). 


106  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

of  Samothrace,  the  most  celebrated  critic  and  grammarian 
of  antiquity,  began  his  brilliant  career,  there  is  now  little 
more  than  an  intellectual  wilderness  and  but  scant  knowl- 
edge even  of  the  names  of  those  who  were  once  the  glory 
of  Hellas,  as  well  as  of  Anatolia.  The  erstwhile  homes  of 
art,  science,  and  literature  in  Asia  Minor  have  shared  the 
same  fate  as  Olympia,  Carthage,  and  Syracuse.  Only  a 
few  broken  columns  and  mutilated  statues  remain  of  what 
were  once  the  great  cultural  centers  of  the  ancient  world. 

How  often  does  not  the  explorer  in  Anatolia  unexpectedly 
come  upon  a  dead  city  on  a  mountain  slope  or  in  a  hidden 
hollow,  which  was  abandoned  a  thousand  years  ago,  whose 
streets  are  choked  with  brushwood,  whose  palaces  and 
theaters  are  covered  with  a  tangle  of  vegetation,  whose 
marble  tombs  are  hidden  by  brambles,  where  the  only 
human  being  ever  seen  is  a  wandering  shepherd  who  is  abso- 
lutely indifferent  to  these  marvelous  vestiges  of  a  marvel- 
ous past? 

And  what  traveler  in  Anatolia  has  not  frequently  seen 
mutilated  columns  and  statues  built  into  walls  and  houses, 
and  beautifully  carved  friezes  and  capitals  put  to  the  most 
ignoble  uses!  Nor  is  this  all.  Everywhere  in  this  land 
of  countless  Pompeis  untold  treasures  of  the  most  delicately 
chiseled  marbles  have  been  cast  into  lime  kilns — marbles 
which  in  the  days  of  the  art-loving  Greeks  and  Romans 
were  above  price  and  which,  for  generations,  were  the 
pride  of  the  cities  which  they  embellished  and  the  chief 
adornment  of  the  superb  structures  of  which  they  formed 
a  part. 

But,  if  the  ruins  of  Anatolia  awake  memories  of  the 
former  grandeur  of  cities  which  were  once  renowned  cen- 
ters of  art,  science,  and  letters,  they  likewise  carry  us  back 
to  the  days  when  the  Osmanli  chieftains  became  the  heirs 
of  the  Eastern  Caesars  and  when  they  gained  the  mastery 
of  that  portion  of  the  world  which  from  the  dawn  of  his- 
tory has  transcended  all  others  in  human  interest ;  the  ter- 
ritory in  which  were  located  the  proud  cities  of  Tyre  and 


THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  107 

Sidon,  Nineveh,  Babylon,  Thebes,  and  Memphis,  Athens, 
Carthage,  and  Alexandria;  the  lands  which  witnessed  the 
decisive  battles  of  Greek  against  Asiatic — Grcecia  barbarice 
lento  collisa  duello — Salamis,  Plataea,  Marathon,  Arbela; 
the  regions,  in  a  word,  in  which  was  enacted  nearly  all  of 
what  is  embraced  in  the  term  "Ancient  History." 

The  cradle  of  the  Osmanlis  was  the  small  village  of 
Sugut  about  a  day's  ride  on  horseback  to  the  south  of 
Nicgea  and  about  the  same  distance  to  the  east  of  the  Mysian 
Olympus.  For  it  was  here  that  Osman,  the  founder  of  the 
Osmanli  dynasty,  first  saw  in  1258  the  light  of  day.  The 
first  thirty  years  of  his  life  was  that  of  a  village  chieftain 
of  a  pastoral  community,  who  lived  in  peace  among  his 
neighbors  and  whose  fighting  men  did  not  number  more 
than  four  hundred.  He  was  then  fired  with  the  ambition 
to  extend  his  boundaries  and  at  the  end  of  ten  years  he 
found  himself  at  the  head  of  four  thousand  warriors  and  in 
direct  contact  with  the  decadent  and  moribund  Byzantine 
Empire. 

When  Osman  died  in  1326  his  emirate  of  Sugut  had  been 
extended  to  the  Marmora  and  the  Euxine  and  included  in 
the  conquered  territory  the  important  cities  of  Brusa, 
Nicomedia,  and  Nicaea.  This  was  the  beginning  of  one  of 
the  greatest  empires  the  world  has  ever  known.  The  same 
emir  of  Sugut  was  also  the  founder  of  a  dynasty  whose  male 
succession  has  endured  uninterruptedly  for  more  than  six 
centuries  and  the  first  ruler  of  a  people  in  which  there  is 
so  complete  a  blending  of  Asiatic  and  European  blood  that 
they  have  been  called  a  distinct  race. 

No  other  dynasty  can  boast  such  a  succession  of  brilliant 
sovereigns  as  those  who  conducted  the  Ottomans  to  the 
height  of  renown  in  the  fourteenth,  fifteenth,  and  sixteenth 
centuries.  First  there  was  Osman,  the  originator  of  a  race, 
next  came  his  son  Orkhan,  the  founder  of  a  state,  and  then 
Osman 's  grandson,  the  creator  of  an  empire.  These  found- 
ers of  an  empire  were  succeeded  by  Bayazid  who,  on  account 


108  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

of  his  rapid  movements,  was  called  Ilderim — lightning; 
Mohammed,  who  retrieved  the  losses  inflicted  by  Timur; 
Murad  II,  the  antagonist  of  Hunyady  and  Skanderberg; 
Mohammed  II,  the  conqueror  of  Constantinople;  Selim  I, 
who  annexed  Kurdistan,  Syria,  and  Egypt,  and  Solyman 
the  Magnificent,  the  victor  on  the  field  of  Mohacs  and  the 
besieger  of  Vienna.  Never  did  eight  such  sovereigns  suc- 
ceed one  another — save  for  the  feeble  Bayazid  II — ^in  un- 
broken succession  in  any  other  country;  never  was  an 
empire  founded  and  extended  during  two  so  splendid  cen- 
turies by  such  a  series  of  great  rulers.  In  the  hour  of 
dismay,  as  well  as  in  the  moment  of  triumph,  the  Turkish 
Sultan  was  master  of  the  situation." 

But  not  only  were  the  Ottoman  Emirs  and  Sultans  of  this 
period  eminent  as  rulers  and  empire  builders.  With  few 
exceptions,  they,  as  well  as  many  of  their  successors,  pos- 
sessed, like  Napoleon,  the  rare  faculty  of  choosing  the  right 
men  for  the  right  place.  This  is  especially  noteworthy  in 
their  choice  of  generals,  admirals,  and  grand  viziers  who 
were  selected  for  the  high  positions,  which  they  filled  with 
such  distinction,  without  regard  to  their  nationality  or  acci- 
dents of  birth.  Among  them  were  Jews  and  eunuchs, 
Greek  and  Italian,  German  and  Polish  renegades.^* 
There  was  the  Italian  Cicala,  the  victor  of  Karestes;  the 
German  Mehemet  Sli,  son  of  a  Magdeburg  musician,  who 
commanded  the  main  army  in  Bulgaria ;  Omar  who  from  a 
Croatian  clerk  became  the  leader  of  the  Turkish  army  in 
the  Crimea.  Chief  among  the  great  admirals  were  the 
Italian  Ululj  AH,  the  Greeks  Kheyr-ed-din  and  Urug  Bar- 

izyfte  Story  of  Turkey,  p.  78    (by  Stanley  Lane-Poole,  New  York,   1888). 

13  The  historian  Hammer-Purgatall  tells  us  that  the  ablest  generals  and 
statesmen  under  the  reigns  of  Selim  and  Solyman  the  Magnificent — those  who 
raised  the  Ottoman  Empire  to  its  acme  of  prosperity — were  renegades.  Dur- 
ing this  period  no  fewer  than  eight  out  of  ten  of  the  grand  viziers  were 
likewise  apostates.  "Si  done  la  puissance  ottomane  foula  aux  pieds  tant  de 
nations,  ce  resultat  ne  doit  pas  ^tre  attribu4  au  caractfere  indolent  et  grossier 
des  Ottomans,  mais  k  I'esprit  de  ruse  et  de  finesse  qui  distingue  lea  peuples 
grecs  et  slaves,  k  la  t^m^rit^  et  k  la  perfidie  des  Allanais  et  des  Dalmates, 
k  la  perseverance  et  k  I'opini^trete  des  Bosniem  et  des  Croates,  enfin  k  la 
valeur  et  aux  talents  des  ren^gats  des  pays  conquis."  Histoire  de  VEmpire 
Ottoman,  Tom.  VI,  p.  45^-454   (Paris,  1835). 


THE  CEADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  109 

barossa  from  the  island  of  Lesbos ;  Piali  Pasha,  from  Croa- 
tia. It  was  chiefly  through  the  aid  of  the  last  three  that 
Solyman  the  Magnificent,  was  able  to  secure  control  of  the 
Mediterranean  and  the  Arab  states  of  Northern  Africa  and 
to  extend  his  devastating  raids  not  only  to  the  coasts  of 
Italy,  France,  and  Spain  but  even  beyond  the  Strait  of 
Gibraltar,  to  waylay  the  argosies  which  were  returning  to 
Cadix  laden  with  the  gold  and  jewels  of  the  Indians." 

But  more  distinguished  than  the  Sultan's  noted  generals 
and  his  corsair  admirals  was  the  long  series  of  men  who 
occupied  the  Grand  Vizierate.  The  most  famous  of  these 
were  the  Abyssinian  eunuch  Bashir;  the  renegade  Jew, 
Kiamil  Pasha;  the  Herzegovinan,  Mohammed  Sokalovich; 
the  Albanian,  Mohammed,  Kiuprili,  who,  from  a  kitchen- 
boy  in  the  Sultan's  palace,  became  the  most  noted  grand 
vizier  that  ever  ruled  the  great  Ottoman  Empire.  He  was 
succeeded  in  the  Grand  Vizierate  by  his  son  Ahmed  who, 
as  a  statesman,  was  scarcely  less  celebrated  than  his  father. 
A  short  interval  after  Ahmed's  death,  Mustafa  Kiuprili,  a 
second  son  of  Mohammed  became  grand  vizier  and  his  rule 
was  marked  by  the  same  consummate  statesmanship  that 
so  distinguished  the  rule  of  his  father  and  brother.  Their 
rise  is  especially  interesting  for,  as  observes  Von  Hammer, 
**the  history  of  the  empires  of  the  Orient  offers  only  four 
instances  of  members  of  the  same  family  succeeding  one 
another  in  the  dignity  of  the  Grand  Vizierate."  ^^ 

In  this  brief  reference  to  the  men  who  achieved  such  dis- 
tinction in  building  up  and  extending  the  Ottoman  Empire, 
we  must  not  forget  the  women  who  played  so  important  a 
role  in  the  history  of  Turkish  politics  and  statecraft. 
Three  of  the  most  notable  of  these  were  the  Muscovite 
Eoxalana,  who  passed  from  a  public  slave  market  to  the 
imperial  harem  to  become  the  wife  of  Solyman  the  Mag- 
nificent, the  greatest  of  the  Ottoman  Sultans ;  the  Venetian 

!♦  The  Story  of  the  Barbary  Oorsaira,  p.  66  (by  Poole  and  Kelly,  New  York, 
1893). 
"  Op.  oit.,  Tom.  I,  p.  18. 


110  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Safia  who  at  an  early  age  was  abducted  from  her  home  on 
the  Grand  Canal,  taken  to  Constantinople  and  sold  to  the 
Sultan  Murad  III,  by  whom  she  had  a  son  who,  after  his 
father's  death,  became  Sultan  Mohammed  III ;  Aimee  Dubuc 
de  Rivery,  who,  like  the  Empress  Josephine,  was  born  in 
the  little  island  of  Martinique  and  who,  in  her  youth,  was  an 
intimate  of  the  future  consort  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  but 
who  eventually  fell  into  the  hands  of  Algerian  pirates  by 
whom  she  was  sold  in  the  slave  market  of  Algiers.  Thence 
she  was  conveyed  to  Constantinople  as  a  present  to  the 
Sultan,  Abdul  Hamid  I,  to  whom  she  bore  a  son  who  be- 
came Mahmud  II,  the  grandfather  of  the  late  Abdul 
Hamid  II. 

By  their  beauty,  wit,  and  fascinating  manners  these  three 
women  gained  an  unbounded  influence  over  the  Sultans 
with  whom  their  lives  were  cast  and,  what  is  more  remark- 
able, they  were  able,  notwithstanding  their  numerous  an- 
tagonists in  the  harem,  to  retain  their  ascendancy  in  the 
affections  of  their  lords  long  after  the  season  of  youth  and 
beauty  had  passed.  In  overweening  ambition,  diplomatic 
finesse,  unfailing  resourcefulness  in  high  resolve,  in  achiev- 
ing success  in  the  face  of  the  greatest  obstacles,  these  three 
Christian  captives  were  worthy  rivals  of  their  more  for- 
tunate sisters  of  the  West — Bianca  Capello,  Catherine  de* 
Medici,  and  the  Marquise  de  Pompadour. 

From  the  preceding  pages,  it  is  clear,  as  Freeman  points 
out  that,^^ 

the  institution  of  the  tribute  children  was  the  very 
keystone  of  the  Ottoman  dominion.  They  won  the  empire 
for  the  Turk  and  they  kept  it  for  him.  .  .  .  During  the  most 
brilliant  days  of  Ottoman  greatness  the  native  Turks  were 
well-nigh  brought  down  to  the  condition  of  a  subject  caste. 
Manumitted  bondmen  from  the  East,  voluntary  renegades 
from  the  West,  Greek  and  Slavonic  tribute-children  directed 
the  councils  and  commanded  the  armies  of  the  Sultans.  A 
Grand  Vizier  or  a  Captain  Pasha  born  in  the  faith  of  Islam 

16  Op.  cit.,  p.  346  et  seq. 


THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  111 

was  indeed  noted  as  a  portent.  Never  did  the  craft  and 
subtlety  of  devil  or  man  devise  such  a  tremendous  engine 
of  tyranny.  The  chains  of  the  conquered  nations  were 
riveted  by  their  own  hands.  Their  best  blood  was  drawn 
away  to  provide  against  any  degeneracy  in  the  blood  of 
their  conquerors.  Their  strongest  and  fairest  children, 
the  most  vigorous  frames  and  the  most  precocious  intel- 
lects, those  whom  nature  had  marked  out  as  chiefs  and 
liberators  of  their  own  race,  were  carried  off  to  become 
the  special  instruments  of  their  degradation.  This  fearful 
institution,  combined  with  the  possession  of  Constantinople, 
and  with  the  marvelous  hereditary  greatness  of  the  ruling 
family,  preserved  the  House  of  Othman  from  the  common 
fate  of  Oriental  dynasties. 

According  to  a  long  prevalent  opinion,  the  Osmanlis  are 
a  Turkish  race  who  achieved  the  conquest  of  Asia  Minor 
before  they  invaded  Europe  and  before  they  became  mas- 
ters of  the  Byzantine  Empire.  The  fact  is  they  had  sub- 
jugated the  entire  Balkan  peninsula  before  they  obtained 
possession  of  more  than  the  northwest  corner  of  Anatolia, 
and  had  maintained  Adrianople  as  the  Ottoman  capital 
eighty-seven  years  before  Mohammed  II,  after  the  con- 
quest of  Constantinople,  transferred  it  to  its  present  loca- 
tion on  the  Bosphorus. 

Nor  were  the  Osmanlis,  even  in  their  earliest  days,  com- 
posed entirely,  as  is  so  often  asserted,  of  Turkish  nomads 
from  the  East.  Far  from  it.  They  were  welded  from  the 
heterogeneous  elements — Greeks,  Carians,  Phrygians, 
Galatians,  the  followers  of  Osman,  and  other  peoples  who 
then  inhabited  the  northwestern  part  of  Asia  Minor.  And, 
as  early  as  the  reign  of  Orkhan,  the  son  and  successor  of 
Osman,  this  complex  blending  of  peoples  became  not  only 
a  distinct  race  but  a  race  with  a  national  consciousness. 

So  far  are  the  Osmanlis  from  regarding  themselves  as 
heirs  of  the  Seljukian  Turks  or  as  transformed  Turkomans 
that  they  have  always  endeavored  to  remove  this  errone- 
ous impression  which  has  so  long  prevailed  concerning 


112  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

their  people.     The  distinguished  historian,  Mouradja  d* 
Ohsson,  declares: 

The  Osmanlis  employ  the  word  **Turk"  when  referring 
to  a  coarse  and  brutal  man.  According  to  the  Osmanlis, 
the  epithet  Turk  belongs  only  to  the  peoples  of  Turkestan 
and  to  those  vagabond  hordes  who  lead  a  stagnant  life  in 
the  deserts  of  Khorassan.  All  the  peoples  submitted  to  the 
Empire  are  designated  under  the  collective  name  of  Osman- 
lis from  Osman  I,  the  founder  of  the  Monarchy,  and  they 
do  not  understand  why  they  are  called  Turks  by  Euro- 
peans. As  they  attach  to  this  word  the  idea  of  the  most 
marlj:ed  insult,  no  foreigner  in  the  Empire  ever  allows 
himself  to  use  it  in  speaking  to  them.^^ 

The  Osmanlis,  as  we  have  seen,  were  of  mixed  blood, 
even  while  still  confined  to  Asia  Minor.  But  after  their 
conquests  in  Europe  and  further  expansion  in  Asia  they 
''became  in  blood  the  most  cosmopolitan  and  vigorous  race 
the  world  had  known  since  the  days  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans.  Greek,  Turkish,  Serbian,  Bulgarian,  Albanian, 
Armenian,  Wallachian,  Hungarian,  German,  Italian,  Rus- 
sian, Tartar,  Mongol,  Circassian,  Georgian,  Persian, 
Syrian,  Arabian — this  was  the  ancestry  of  the  Osmanlis, 
who,  under  Solyman  the  Magnificent,  made  the  whole  world 
tremble.  In  richness  of  blood  the  only  parallel  to  the 
Osmanlis  in  modern  times  is  the  present  population  of  the 
United  States  and  Canada.*'^®  It  would,  indeed,  require 
an  ethnological  analyst  of  superhuman  power  to  determine 
the  percentage  of  Osmanli  blood  in  the  present  inhabitants 
of  the  western  part  of  the  Ottoman  Empire.^® 

Nor  is  this  all.  From  the  day  of  Orkhan  and  Murad  I, 
the  Osmanlis  have  been  classed  as  raiders  like  the  devas- 


^"i  Tableau  GSneral  de  V  Empire  Ottoman,  Tom.  II,  p.  217  (Paris.  1790). 

"^^The  Foundation  of  the  Ottoman  Empire,  p.  117  (by  H.  A.  Gibbons,  New 
York,  1916). 

19  Freeman  writes  to  the  same  effect  when  he  declares  "between  renegades, 
Janissaries  and  the  mothers  of  all  nations,  the  blood  of  many  a  Turk  must 
be  physically  anything  rather  than  Turkish."     Op.  cit.,  p.  187. 


THE  CEADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  113 

tating  hordes  of  Timur  and  Genghis  Kahn.  Nothing  could 
be  farther  from  the  truth.  So  far  indeed  were  they  from 
being  a  predatory  people  like  the  Mongols  and  Tartars 
that  they  were,  from  the  days  of  their  founder,  a  race  of 
colonists  and  empire  builders.  This  was  the  secret  of  their 
success  and  the  explanation  of  the  marvelous  development 
of  the  Empire  of  the  Sultans,  which,  as  the  eminent  Aus- 
trian historian,  Joseph  Von  Hammer-Purgstall,  has  de- 
clared ''was  more  rapid  in  its  rise  than  Rome,  more  en- 
during than  that  of  Alexander." 

The  causes  which  contributed  to  the  rapid  development 
of  the  Osmanlis  from  the  four  hundred  warriors  of  Osman 
into  the  vast  armies  of  his  successors  and  to  the  achieve- 
ment of  such  extraordinary  results  in  so  short  a  period  of 
time  were,  as  the  historian  Finlay  points  out,  '  *  in  some  de- 
gree similar  to  those  which  had  enabled  small  tribes  of 
Goths  and  Germans  to  occupy  and  subdue  the  Western 
Roman  Empire. ' '  ^° 

But  there  were  other  contributory  causes  which  enabled 
the  Osmanlis  so  quickly  to  become  masters  of  the  Byzan- 
tine Empire  and  to  make  themselves  a  menace  to  the  whole 
of  Europe.  Chief  among  these  were  the  conflicting  ambi- 
tions of  numerous  aspirants  to  the  Byzantine  throne  and 
the  rivalries  of  the  petty  chieftains  of  the  Balkan  Penin- 
sula and  the  commercial  jealousies  of  Venice  and  Genoa. 
All  these  purely  secular  aims  made  anything  like  joint 
action  against  the  followers  of  the  Crescent  quite  im- 
possible. 

It  was  Cantacuzenos,  a  traitor  to  his  empress,  the  widow 
of  Andronicus  II,  who  introduced  the  Osmanlis  into 
Europe.     After  usurping  the  Byzantine  throne,  he  gave  his 

20  A  History  of  Greece  from  its  Conquest  hy  the  Romans  to  the  Present 
Time,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  475  (Oxford,  1877).  Among  these  causes  Finlay  indicates 
three  which  deserve  special  attention.  "First,  the  superiority  of  the  Ottoman 
tribe  over  all  contemporary  nations  in  religious  convictions  and  in  moral  and 
military  conduct.  Second,  the  number  of  different  races  which  composed  the 
population  of  the  country  between  the  Adriatic  and  the  Black  Sea,  the 
Danube  and  the  .^Egean.  Third,  the  depopulation  of  the  Greek  Empire,  the 
degraded  state  of  its  judicial  and  civil  administration  and  the  demoralization 
of  the  Hellenic  race. 


114  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

daughter,  Theodora,  in  marriage  to  the  emir  Orkhan  ia 
exchange  for  six  thousand  soldiers  to  aid  him  in  his  strug- 
gle against  his  legitimate  sovereign.  By  his  infamous  be- 
trayal of  his  empress  and  country  he  contributed  more 
than  any  single  factor  to  the  ultimate  downfall  of  the 
Byzantine  Empire. 

It  was  the  despot  Theodore  Paleologus  who  invited  the 
Osmanlis  into  Greece  to  support  him  in  his  contest  with 
the  Greeks  and  the  Franks.  It  was  the  Serbian  prince 
Stephen  Bukcovitz  who  formed  an  alliance  with  the  emir 
Bayazid  to  whom  he  gave  his  sister  as  wife  and  for  whom 
he  commanded  a  contingent  in  the  Ottoman  Army — even 
against  his  coreligionists.  "When  the  Osmanli  forces,  after 
their  signal  defeat  by  Timur  at  Angora,  were  faced  with 
annihilation  at  the  hands  of  the  victorious  Tartars,  it  was 
the  Greeks,  Genoese,  and  Venetians  who  saved  them  from 
destruction  by  transporting  them  across  the  Dardanelles 
and  the  Bosphorus  to  Europe  where  their  relentless  pur- 
suers were  unable  to  follow  them. 

But  these  are  only  a  few  instances  of  the  aid  which  the 
Ottoman  conquerors  received  from  the  Christian  nations 
of  Europe.  **In  their  conquest  of  the  Balkan  peninsula 
it  is  remarkable,"  declares  a  recent  writer,  "that  the 
Osmanlis  never  fought  a  battle  without  the  help  of  allies 
of  the  faith  and  blood  of  those  whom  they  were  putting 
under  the  Moslem  yoke."^^  The  victories  of  Bayazid  in 
the  region  of  the  Danube  were  largely  due  to  the  coopera- 
tion of  his  Christian  vassals.  And  in  his  invasion  of  Hun- 
gary he  was  more  beholden  to  the  Wallachians  than  to  his 
famed  corps  of  Janissaries.^^ 

21  Gibbons,  op.  cit.,  p.  173. 

22  No  one  is  more  familiar  with  the  Ottoman  people  or  their  history  than 
Professor  William  Ramsay  who  does  not  hesitate  to  declare:  "It  has  al- 
most always  been  by  the  strength  and  skill  of  Christian  allies  that  the  Turks 
have  vanquished  the  Christians: 

But  Turkish  force  and  Latin  fraud 
Would   break   their  shield,   however  hroad." 
Impressions  of  Turkey  During  Twelve   Years   Wandering,  p.  271   et  seq. 
(London.  1897). 
"The  Christians  were  crushed  by  the  arts  and  arms  of  their  own  brethren; 


THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  115 

Yet  more.  For,  contrary  to  a  common  opinion,  he  re- 
ceived no  assistance  whatever  from  Saracens  or  Persians, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  these  peoples  did  not  join  forces 
with  the  Ottomans  until  a  much  later  date. 

The  Osmanlis  did  not  cross  the  Taurus  until  more  than 
a  century  after  they  had  passed  the  Balkans  and  did  not 
become  "masters  of  Asia  Minor  until  long  after  their  in- 
heritance of  the  Byzantine  Empire  was  regarded  in  Europe 
as  a  fait  accompli."  " 

And  it  is  equally  true  that  "whatever  they  accomplished 
in  Asia  was  the  indirect  result  of  their  stupendous  suc- 
cesses in  Europe.  From  first  to  last  the  extension  of  Otto- 
man sovereignty  over  the  Moslems  of  Asia  was  by  means  of 
a  soldiery  gathered  and  war-hardened  in  Europe,  them- 
selves Christian  or  of  Christian  ancestry,  in  whose  veins 
ran  the  blood  of  Greek  and  Roman,  of  Goth  and  Hun,  of 
Albanian  and  Slav. "  " 

Besides  the  causes  just  enumerated,  there  were  others 
of  quite  a  different  nature  that  made  for  the  phenomenal 
military  achievements  of  Osmanlis  in  Asia  Minor  and  in 
the  Balkans.  They  were  the  same  causes  which  had  so 
greatly  favored  the  ready  submission  of  the  peoples  of 
Syria  and  northern  Africa  and  which  had  so  potently  con- 
tributed towards  the  rapid  diffusion  of  Islam  in  all  coun- 
tries which  bordered  the  eastern  and  southern  Mediterra- 
nean. The  Byzantine  Empire  had  long  been  afflicted  by 
incompetent  and  decadent  rulers.  The  tyranny  and  the 
vexations  of  exarchs  had  become  intolerable.  The  people 
were  overburdened  with  taxes  and  their  property  was  in  a 
large  measure  confiscated.  Under  such  conditions  the 
Saracens  and  the  Ottomans  came  as  liberators  to  the  long- 
suffering,  down-trodden  populations.  By  embracing  Islam, 
the  Christians  of  the  Orient  were  relieved  from  the  oppres- 
sive taxes  of  Byzantium  and  entered  again  into  the  pos- 

Constantinopte  fell,  not  before  the  Saracen  or  the  Turk  but  before  warriors 
of  Greek  and  Slavonic  blood."    Op.  cit.,  p.  272. 

23  Gibbons,  op  cit.,  p.  302. 

24  Ibid,  p.  123. 


116  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

session  of  their  sequestrated  property.  Even  when  they 
refused  to  accept  the  Koran  they  recovered  their  lands  by 
the  payment  of  a  moderate  capitation  tax  and  were  thus 
enabled  to  live  under  the  protection  of  Moslem  law  which 
took  no  notice  of  the  religious  controversies  of  rival  Chris- 
tian sects.  This  liberal  policy  of  Islam  towards  its  Chris- 
tian subjects — a  policy  which  safeguarded  their  persons 
and  property — following  as  it  did  on  the  heels  of  the  odious 
tyranny  of  the  Lower  Empire — was  an  important  factor 
in  the  marvelously  rapid  extension  of  Islam  and  in  the 
easy  domination  of  the  conquering  Ottomans  and 
Saracens.  In  Asia  Minor,  particularly,  Mohammedanism 
achieved  an  easy  triumph  because  it  was  opposed  to  Byzan- 
tine despotism  which  was  the  object  of  universal  execration. 
But  nothing,  probably,  contributed  more  towards  the 
rapid  conquest  of  the  Osmanlis  than  their  spirit  of  toler- 
ance in  matters  of  religion.  This  will,  I  know,  seem  strange 
to  those  who,  from  their  youth,  have  listened  to  the  story 
of  the  atrocities  of  that  mythical  personage,  "the  Moslem 
warrior  with  the  sword  in  one  hand  and  the  Koran  in  the 
other. ' ' 

But  [writes  one  who  has  made  a  special  study  of  the 
subject],  whether  their  tolerance  was  actuated  by  policy, 
by  genuine  kindly  feeling,  or  by  indifference,  the  fact  cannot 
be  gainsaid  that  the  Osmanlis  were  the  first  nation  in  mod- 
ern history  to  lay  down  the  principle  of  religious  freedom 
as  the  corner-stone  in  the  building  up  of  their  nation. 
During  the  centuries  that  bear  the  stain  of  unremitting 
persecution  of  the  Jew  [in  western  Europe]  the  Christian 
and  the  Moslem  lived  together  in  harmony  under  the 
Osmanlis." 

To  one  who  is  familiar  with  the  teachings  of  the  Koran 
and  the  policy  of  Islam  since  the  days  of  Mohammed  there 
is  nothing  surprising  in  this  tolerance  and  religious  free- 
dom which  Osmanlis  and  Moslems  have  always  accorded 

26  H.  A.  Gibbons,  op.  cit,  p.  81. 


THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  117 

their  Christian  subjects.  "Let  there  be  no  compulsion  in 
religion,"  ^^  declares  the  Prophet,  and  again  it  is  written, 
*'Wilt  thou  compel  men  to  become  believers?  No  soul  can 
believe  but  by  the  permission  of  God."" 

Nor  were  these  and  numerous  other  declarations  of  the 
Koran  of  similar  import  ever  ignored  by  the  leaders  of 
Islam  in  their  dealings  with  their  non-Moslem  subjects. 
There  have  been,  it  is  true,  frequent  outbursts  of  fanati- 
cism, even  of  persecution  among  Mohammedans,  which  re- 
sulted in  much  suffering  on  the  part  of  the  Christian  popu- 
lation and  in  putting  in  force  against  them  very  intolerant 
measures.  But  the  persecutions  and  harsh  ordinances 
were  not  so  much  the  result  of  religious  antagonism  as  of 
political  conditions  at  the  time.  Not  a  few  of  them  are 
traceable  to  a  distrust  of  the  loyalty  of  Christians  towards 
their  Moslem  rulers  or  to  the  intrigues  of  Christian  nations 
like  Russia  whose  secret  emissaries  have  been  responsible 
for  so  much  of  the  agitation  in  Asia  Minor  for  generations 
past.  Others  again  may  be  traced  to  the  bad  faith  of  cer- 
tain European  powers  in  their  dealings  with  Moslem  rul- 
ers, or  to  the  ** harsh  and  insolent  behavior  of  Christian 
officials"  in  the  service  of  Mohammedan  sovereigns." 

Neglected  as  the  Eastern  Christians  have  been  by  their 
Christian  brethren  in  the  West,  unarmed  for  the  most  part 
and  utterly  defenceless,  it  would  have  been  easy  for  any 
of  the  powerful  rulers  of  Islam  to  have  utterly  rooted  out 
their  Christian  subjects  or  banished  them  from  their  domin- 
ions as  the  Spaniards  did  the  Moors,  or  the  English  the 
Jews,  for  nearly  four  centuries.  It  would  have  been  per- 
fectly possible  for  Selim  I  (in  1514)  or  Ibrahim  (in  1646) 
to  have  put  into  execution  the  barbarous  notion  they  con- 

26  Sura  II.  257. 

27  Sura  X.  99.  100. 

28  The  erudite  Assemani,  Librarian  of  the  Vatican  Library,  writing  of 
certain  persecutions  of  the  Christians  by  Mohammedans,  declares:  "Non 
raro  persecutionis  procellam  excitarunt  mutuse  Christianorum  jpsorum  sfmul- 
tates.  sacerdotum  licencia,  prsesulum  fastus.  tyrannica  magnatum  potestaa, 
et  medicorum  prsesertim  scribarumque  de  supremo  in  gentem  suam  imperio 
altercationes."  Biblotheca  Orientalis  Clementino-Taticana,  Tom.  Ill,  Pars,  II 
(Rome,  1719—1728). 


118  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

ceived  of  exterminating  their  Christian  subjects,  just  as 
the  former  had  massacred  forty  thousand  Shiahs  with  the 
aim  of  establishing  uniformity  of  religious  belief  among 
his  Mohammedan  subjects.  The  muftis  who  turned  the 
minds  of  their  masters  from  such  a  cruel  purpose  did  so  as 
the  exponents  of  Muslim  law  and  Muslim  tolerance.^" 

*'The  very  survival,"  therefore,  **of  the  Christian 
Churches  to  the  present  day,  is,"  as  the  same  author  perti- 
nently observes,  *'a  strong  proof  of  the  generally  tolerant 
attitude  of  the  Mohammedan  governments  towards 
them."^'' 

Ecclesiastical  writers  of  the  epoch  of  the  Mohammedan 
conquest  give  still  another  explanation  of  the  rapid  prog- 
ress of  Moslem  armies,  which  was  quite  in  accord  with  the 
spirit  of  the  time.  God  wished,  they  declared,  to  chastize 
the  Christians  for  their  infidelity  and  to  compel  them  to 
do  penance  for  their  manifold  heresies.  In  their  view  it 
was  not  the  astounding  conquests  of  the  Mussulmans  that 


29  The  Preaching  of  Islam,  a  History  of  the  Propagation  of  the  Muslim 
Faith,  pp.  422,  423  (by  T.  W.  Arnold,  London,  1913). 

30  Ibid.,  pp.  79,  80. 

Of  all  who  have  made  a  careful  study  of  the  character  and  religion  of 
the  Mohammedans  of  Asia,  no  one  probably,  is  better  qualified  to  express  an 
opinion  on  the  subject  under  consideration  than  M.  A.  de  Gobineau.  As  the 
lesult  of  thorough  investigation  during  several  years  residence  among  them, 
he  does  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  if  one  separates  religious  doctrines 
from  political  necessity  which  has  often  spoken  and  acted  in  its  name,  there 
is  no  religion  that  is  more  tolerant,  one  might  almost  say  more  indifferent 
regarding  mens'  faith  than  Islam.  "Cette  disposition  organique  est  si  forte 
qu'en  dehors  des  cas  ou  la  raison  d'£tat  mise  en  jeu  a  porte  les  gouvernments 
mussulmans  k  se  faire  arme  de  tout  pour  tendre  k  unite  de  foi,  la  tolerance 
la  plus  complete  a  ete  la  regie  fournie  par  le  dogme.  .  .  .  Qu'on  ne  s'  arrfite 
pas  aux  violences,  aux  cruautes  commises  dans  une  occasion  ou  dans  une 
autre.  Si  on  regarde  de  pres,  on  ne  tardera  pas  k  y  d^couvrir  des  causes 
toutes  politiques  ou  toutes  de  passion  humaine  et  de  temperament  chez  le 
souverain  ou  dans  la  population.  Le  fait  religieux  n'y  est  invoque  que 
comme  pretexte  et,  en  rfealite,  il  reste  en  dehors."  Les  Religions  et  les  Philoso- 
phies dans  V  Asie  Central,  pp.  24,  25  (Paris,  1865). 

What  has  been  said  of  the  tolerance  of  the  Osmanlis  or  of  the  peoples  of 
Central  Asia  the  distinguished  Orientalist,  Prince  Caetani,  claims  for  the 
Arabian  followers  of  the  Prophet.  "Gli  Arabi,"  he  writes  in  his  monumental 
work  Annali  deW  Islam,  Vol.  V,  p.  4  (Milan,  1912),  "nei  primi  anni  non 
perseguitarono  invece  alcuno  per  ragioni  di  fede,  no  si  diedero  pena  alcuna 
per  convertire  chicchessia,  sicche  sotto  I'lslam,  dopo  le  prime  conquiste,  i 
Christiani  Semiti  goderono  d'una  tolleranza  religiosa  quale  non  si  era  mai 
vista  da  varie  generazioni." 


THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS    119 

led  to  the  apostasy  of  such  vast  numbers  of  Christians.  It 
was  rather  the  numerous  and  widespread  defections  of 
heretical  churches  which  rendered  the  conquest  of  Islam 
so  easy  that  it  surprised  the  victors  as  much  as  the  van- 
quished. Moslem  arms,  then,  according  to  these  writers 
were  but  an  instrument  of  divine  vengeance,  or,  as  one  of 
them  expressed  it,  peccatis  exigentibus  victi  sunt  Chris- 
tianV^ 

As  one  traverses  the  small  territory  which  was  the  cradle 
of  the  Osmanlis  and  reflects  that  the  people  to  whom  the  in- 
significant emir  of  Sugut  gave  his  name  were,  from  their 
first  appearance  in  history,  almost  within  sight  of  the  City 
of  Constantine,  one  cannot  help  admiring  their  marvelous 
transformation  from  retainers  of  a  village  chieftain  to 
heirs  of  the  empire  of  the  Caesars,  to  masters  of  vast  terri- 
tories in  Asia,  Africa,  and  Europe.^^    From  the  humblest 

31  L'Espaiia  Sagrada,  Teatro  Geografico  de  la  Iglesia  de  Espaiia,  Tom. 
XXXVII,  p.  312.  Cardinal  Hergenrother  hold  the  same  view  when  he  declares 
that  Islam  was  a  Strafe — punishment — for  the  degenerate  Christians  of  the 
Orient  whose  moral  corruption,  religious  schism,  and  desecration  of  sacred 
things  through  arbitrary  state-power  had  paved  the  way  for  it.  Eandbuch 
der  Allgemeinen  Kirchengeschichte,  Tom.  I,  p.  748  (Freiburg  im  Breisgau, 
1884). 

The  distinguished  historian,  F.  X.  Funk,  expresses  a  similar  opinion  when 
he  writes :  "The  Carthaginians  were  safely  gathered  under  the  standard  of 
the  Prophet  and  the  conquerors  were  free  to  continue  their  victorious  march 
on  the  Barbary  States  and  the  West  of  Africa,  the  many  divisions  and 
enmities  to  which  Christological  disputes  had  given  rise  among  the  Eastern 
Christians  greatly  facilitating  their  task."  A  Manual  of  Church  History, 
Vol.  I,  p.  132    (London,  1909). 

32  "Estimates  of  population,"  observes  Marriott,  "are  notoriously  untrust- 
worthy, but  it  seems  probable  that  at  a  time  when  Henry  VIII  ruled  over  about 
four  million  people  the  subjects  of  Sultan  Suleiman  numbered  fifty  million." 
The  Eastern  Question,  p.  89   (Oxford,  1917). 

"After  the  conquest  of  Constantinople,"  writes  Finlay,  "the  Ottomans 
became  the  most  dangerous  conquerors  who  have  acted  a  part  in  European 
history  since  the  fall  of  the  western  Roman  Empire.  Their  Dominion,  at 
the  period  of  its  greatest  extension,  stretched  from  Buda  on  the  Danube  to 
Bussora  on  the  Euphrates.  On  the  north,  their  frontiers  were  guarded  against 
the  Poles  by  the  fortress  of  Kamenietz,  and  against  the  Russians  by  the  walls 
of  Azof;  while  to  the  south  the  rock  of  Aden  secured  their  authority  over 
the  southern  coast  of  Arabia,  invested  them  with  power  in  the  Indian  Ocean, 
and  gave  them  the  complete  command  of  the  Red  Sea.  To  the  east,  the  Sultan 
ruled  the  shores  of  the  Caspian,  from  the  Kour  to  the  Tenek;  and  his  dominion 
stretched  westward  along  the  southern  coast  of  the  Mediterranean,  where 
the  farthest  limits  of  the  regency  of  Algiers,  beyond  Oran,  meet  the  frontiers 
of  the  empire  of  Morocco.  By  rapid  steps  the  Ottomans  completed  the  con- 
quest of  the  Seljouk  sultans  in  Asia  Minor,  of  the  Mamlouk  sultans  in  Syria 
and  Egypt,  of  the  fierce  corsairs  of  northern  Africa,  expelled  the  Venetians 


120  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

beginnings  they  gradually  became  a  people  who  can  boast 
of  the  longest  continued  dynasty  in  Europe;  and  who  can 
point  in  their  early  history  to  a  rare  series  of  brilliant  rul- 
ers and  a  line  of  sovereigns  who  have  occupied  a  throne 
which  has  been  immovable  from  the  days  of  Mohammed  the 
Conqueror,  nearly  five  centuries  ago,  and  which,  notwith- 
standing menaces  from  many  quarters,  seems  destined  to 
remain  immovable  for  many  long  generations  to  come. 

from  Cyprus,  Crete,  and  the  Archipelago,  and  drove  the  Knights  of  St.  John 
of  Jerusalem  from  the  Levant,  to  find  a  shelter  at  Malta.  It  was  no  vain 
boast  of  the  Ottoman  sultan  that  he  was  the  master  of  many  kingdoms, 
the  ruler  of  three  continents,  and  the  lord  of  two  seas."  History  of  Greece, 
Vol.  V,  p.  6   (Oxford,  1877). 


CHAPTER  VI 
HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA 

Truths  can  never  he  confirmed  enough, 
Though  doubts  did  ever  sleep. 

Shakespeare  "Pericles"  V.  I. 

No  part  of  Asia  Minor  possesses  greater  interest  for  the 
traveler  of  a  studious  turn  than  that  which  borders  the 
Anatolian  Railroads.  And  this,  as  the  historian  well  knows, 
is  saying  much  indeed.  For  from  time  immemorial  the 
peninsula  of  Asia  Minor  has  been  the  great  battlefield 
between  the  Orient  and  the  Occident.  Topographically  it 
is  like  a  great  bridge  over  which,  as  has  been  weU  said, 
"the  religion,  art  and  civilization  of  the  East  found  their 
way  into  Greece ;  and  the  civilization  of  Greece,  under  the 
guidance  of  Alexander  the  Macedonian,  passed  back  again 
across  the  same  bridge  to  conquer  the  East  and  revolution- 
ize Asia  as  far  as  the  heart  of  India.  Persians,  Arabs, 
Mongols,  Turks,  have  all  followed  the  same  route  in  the 
many  attempts  that  Asia  has  made  to  subdue  the  West.'*^ 

It  is  the  bridge  over  which  passed  the  famed  "Royal 
Road,'*  so  graphically  described  by  Herodotus,  which  ex- 
tended from  Ephesus  on  the  -^gean  Sea  to  far-off  Susa  in 
southern  Persia.  To  make  the  journey  between  these  two 
cities  required,  according  to  the  same  historian,  no  less  than 
ninety  days.  And  it  was  the  bridge  over  which  the  Chris- 
tian pilgrims  were  wont  to  pass  on  their  way  from  Europe 
to  the  Holy  Land,  and  the  bridge  also  which  was  crossed  by 
the  Crusaders  under  Godefroy  de  Bouillon,  Louis  VII  of 
France,  and  Frederic  Barbarossa  when  they  sought  to 
recover  Jerusalem  from  the  Mohammedans. 

The  course  of  the  Anatolian  Railroad  is,  for  the  most 


1  The  Historical  Geography  of  Asia  Minor,  p.  23  (by  W.  M.  Ramsay,  Lon- 
don, 1890). 

121 


122  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

part,  the  same  as  that  of  a  great  military  highway  in  Roman 
and  Byzantine  times  from  Nicasa  to  Dorylaeum.  And  the 
scenery  along  it,  especially  between  Ismid  and  Eski-Shehr, 
is  often  of  rare  beauty  and  grandeur.  In  places  it  is  much 
like  that  of  southern  Colorado  and  northern  California. 
There  is  the  same  succession  of  smiling  landscapes — 
emerald  valleys  dotted  with  modest  homesteads,  broad 
stretches  of  meadow  land  sprinkled  with  sleek  herds  and 
happy  flocks,  noble  forests  of  oak  and  pine,  walnut  and 
sycamore.  In  some  localities  the  vegetation  is  almost  of 
tropical  luxuriance  and  the  road  is  fringed  by  a  wild  tangle 
of  bramble  and  brushwood  tapestried  with  clematis  and 
ivy  and  woodbine  in  a  flaming  setting  of  dog-rose  and 
azalea. 

As  we  approach  Bilejik  eastward  of  the  snow-capped 
Mysian  Olympus  the  character  of  the  scenery  completely 
changes.  The  grade  of  the  road  rapidly  increases  and  as 
we  pass  along  gorges  and  canyons,  through  tunnels  and 
over  bridges  and  describe  innumerable  curves  we  realize 
that  we  are  ascending  the  famed  table-land  of  Anatolia  and 
are  nearing  Sugut,  the  earliest  home  of  the  Ottoman  Turks. 

Eski-Shehr,  from  which  a  branch  of  the  Anatolian  Rail- 
road runs  to  Angora,  the  ancient  Ancyra,  is  a  flourishing 
town  and,  thanks  to  its  finely  equipped  railway  shops,  is 
the  home  of  a  large  number  of  railway  employees  and  their 
families.  Before  the  world  war  an  excellent  school  for  the 
benefit  of  the  children  of  the  employees  was  established 
here  and  was  well  attended.  It  was  conducted  on  the  Ger- 
man system  and  instruction  was  given  in  German.  Among 
the  languages  taught,  besides  German,  were  Greek,  French, 
Turkish,  and  Armenian.  The  town  is  noted  for  being  the 
chief  center  of  the  world's  supply  of  meerschaum,  a  com- 
modity from  which  the  Turkish  Government  derives  a  hand- 
some revenue.  From  Eski-Shehr  we  went  to  Afium-Kara- 
Hissar,  from  which  great  quantities  of  opium  are  annually 
shipped,  and  thence  to  Konia,  anciently  Iconium,  which  is 
the  western  terminus  of  the  Bagdad  Railway. 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA     123 

Bnt  more  interesting  far  than  its  scenic  attractions  and 
its  historic  ruins,  its  railroads  and  various  industries,  are 
the  people  of  Anatolia.  And  by  the  people  I  mean  not  the 
foreign  element — the  Greeks,  Armenians,  Circassians,  and 
others,  so  conspicuous  in  Smyrna  and  Constantinople — ^but 
the  Osmanlis.  For  it  is  not  in  the  large  cities  of  Turkey, 
where  there  is  always  such  a  heterogeneous  population,  that 
the  Ottoman  is  found  at  his  best  but  in  the  small  towns  and 
villages  of  the  interior  of  the  country  and  particularly 
in  that  portion  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  which  formerly  con- 
stituted the  emirates  of  Osman  and  Orkhan. 

No  people  in  the  world,  it  is  safe  to  say,  have  ever  been 
more  misunderstood  or  more  misrepresented  than  the 
Osmanlis.  For  generations  they  have  been  regarded  as  a 
nation  guilty  of  every  crime  and  steeped  in  every  vice.  But 
since  the  Bulgarian  agitation,  in  1876,  when  Carlyle  wrote 
**the  unspeakable  Turk  should  be  immediately  struck  out 
of  the  question,  and  the  country  left  to  honest  European 
guidance,"  the  Osmanlis  have  been  treated  as  a  nation  of 
pariahs  who  had  not  to  their  credit  a  single  redeeming 
feature. 

They  have  been  denounced  as  cruel,  bloodthirsty,  treach- 
erous, dishonest,  intolerant,  and  fanatical  in  the  extreme. 
They  have  been  pilloried  as  a  nation  of  gross  voluptuaries 
totally  devoid  of  all  moral  sense  and  incapable  of  any  noble 
sentiment  and  generous  action.  They  have  been  stigma- 
tized as  a  cancer  on  the  body  of  humanity  that  should  be 
dealt  with  in  the  most  drastic  manner  by  the  Great  Powers 
of  Europe.  Gladstone  expressed  public  opinion  when, 
speaking  on  the  Eastern  Question,  he  said,  **Let  the  Turks 
now  carry  away  their  abuses  in  the  only  possible  manner, 
namely,  by  carrying  away  themselves.  .  .  .  One  and  all, 
bag  and  baggage,  shall,  I  hope,  clear  out  from  the  province 
they  have  desolated  and  profaned." 

But  what  is  the  truth  about  the  Osmanlis?  Are  they  the 
vile  and  abominable  people  which  Carlyle 's  epithet  would 
indicate?    And  are  the  Christian  nations  of  Europe  justi- 


124  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

fied  in  adopting  towards  them  what  the  English  Conserva- 
tives aptly  termed  ** Gladstone *s  bag  and  baggage  policy"? 

Let  us  see. 

First  of  all  it  may  be  premised  that  most  of  the  above  in- 
dictments against  the  Turks  have  been  made  by  people  who 
have  little  or  no  personal  knowledge  of  them,  or  by  people 
who  have  been  governed  by  passion  or  prejudice  or  have 
been  actuated  by  selfish  or  political  motives.  And,  sec- 
ondly, it  may  be  asserted  as  a  fact  that  cannot  be  gainsaid 
that  those  who  have  lived  among  the  Turks  any  length  of 
time  and  have  had  an  opportunity  of  becoming  intimately 
acquainted  with  them  find  them  to  be  thoroughly  good, 
gentle,  brave,  and  loyal  to  the  core.  And  the  longer  one 
lives  among  them  and  the  better  one  knows  them  the  greater 
is  one 's  admiration  for  them.  This  is  especially  true  of  the 
real  Turk — the  Osmanli — particularly  those  of  the  peasant 
and  bourgeois  class  in  Anatolia.  These  are  as  honest  and 
upright  as  they  are  temperate,  pious,  and  religious. 

The  piety  and  the  devotion  of  the  Moslems,  their  gravity 
and  solemnity  and  reverential  attitude  during  prayer, 
whether  in  the  mosque  or  elsewhere,  are  of  such  character 
as  to  make  a  deep  impression  on  even  the  least  religious. 
**I  have  never  entered  a  mosque,"  writes  Renan,  ** without 
a  deep  emotion,  and — shall  I  say  it? — ^without  a  certain 
regret  at  not  being  a  Mussulman."  ^ 

This  devout  character  of  the  Mohammedans  which  so  pro- 
foundly impressed  Renan,  appealed  with  equal  force  to 
the  poet  who  wrote : 

Most  honor  to  the  men  of  prayer, 

Whose  mosque  is  in  them  everywhere! 

Who  amid  revel's  wildest  din, 

In  war's  severest  discipline, 

On  rolling  deck,  in  thronged  bazaar, 

In  stranger  land,  however  far, 

2  L'Islamisme  et  la  Science,  p.  19  (Paris,  1883). 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA     125 

However  different  in  their  reach 

Of  thought,  in  manners,  dress  or  speech,— ^ 

Will  quietly  their  carpet  spread, 

To  Mekkeh  turn  the  humble  head, 

As  if  blind  to  all  around. 

And  deaf  to  each  resounding  sound 

In  ^ritual  language  God  adore, 

In  spirit  to  His  presence  soar. 

And  in  the  pauses  of  the  prayer. 

Rest,  as  if  rapt  in  glory  there. 


Many,  if  not  most  of  the  erroneous  notions  which  have 
been  obtained  respecting  the  Osmanlis  have  had  their 
origin,  at  least  in  the  minds  of  the  great  majority  of  people, 
in  the  ludicrous  conceptions  which  have  long  been  current 
regarding  the  harem  life  of  these  much  maligned  people. 
When  a  harem  is  referred  to  in  Europe  or  America  it  is 
pictured  as  consisting  of  a  swarthy,  fierce,  and  sensual 
pasha,  seated  on  a  broad  divan,  garbed  in  richly  embroid- 
ered robes,  armed  with  a  highly  ornate  scimitar,  and  con- 
tentedly smoking  his  narghile  while  his  ever-youthful  wives 
are  entertaining  him  with  music  and  dance  and  song. 

Nothing  could  be  more  preposterous,  or  further  from  the 
reality.  For  monogamy  and  not  polygamy  is  the  rule  in 
the  Ottoman  Empire  especially  in  Anatolia,  and  always  has 
been.  The  Koran  does,  indeed,  permit  polygamy  but  under 
such  restrictions  that  a  plurality  of  wives  is  confined  to 
those  who  are  able  to  make  due  provision  for  their  support. 
And  even  among  the  wealthy  monogamy  is  daily  becoming 
more  prevalent.  Thus  the  late  Sultan,  Mohammed  V,  unUke 
some  of  his  polygamous  predecessors,  had  but  a  single  wife 
and  to  her,  also  unlike  his  predecessors,  he  was  legally 
married. 

Indeed,  so  unpopular  has  polygamy  become  among  en- 
lightened Mussulmans  that  an  eminent  authority  on  the 
subject  declares  that  "if  Mohammedanism  had  a  Pope  and 
a  Church,  in  a  word,  an  authority  always  living  and 
invested  with  the  right  to  modify  the  precepts  of  the  Koran, 


126  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

in  order  to  adapt  them  to  the  needs  of  the  age,  it  is  almost 
certain  that  polygamy  would  already  have  disappeared. ' ' ' 

Much  of  the  prevailing  misconception  concerning  the 
harem  life  in  the  Orient  arises  from  the  lamentable  igno- 
rance in  our  western  lands  regarding  the  true  meaning  of 
the  word  harem.  To  many  who  should  know  better  it  is 
synonymous  with  a  place  of  debauchery,  whereas,  it  is,  on 
the  contrary,  the  very  opposite  of  this.  Derived  from  the 
Arabic  word  harim,  Turkish  harem,  it  signifies  anything 
forbidden  or  a  sacred  thing  or  place.  Thus  the  part  of  a 
Moslem's  home  which  is  assigned  for  the  exclusive  use  of 
his  wife  and  children,  for  their  female  servants' and  friends 
is  called  the  harem.  It  is  their  sanctuary  to  which  no  males 
are  admitted  except  the  immediate  members  of  the  family. 
It  may  be  but  the  half  of  a  Bedouin  "House  of  hair,"  or  the 
wing  of  a  marble  palace  on  the  Bosphorus  but  it  is  still  the 
harem — the  sacred  abode,  the  sanctum  sanctorum,  of  the 
feminine  members  of  the  household  and  women  visitors.* 

In  ordinary  Ottoman  houses  the  harem  occupies  the 
upper  story  and  is  the  best  and  most  commodious  part  of 
the  building.  The  usual  term  employed  to  designate  the 
wife's  apartment  is  haremlik,  while  that  occupied  by  the 


3  Count  Henry  de  Castries,  in  L'Islam,  Impressions  et  Etudes,  p.  121 
(Paris,  1912). 

*  "It  is  an  amusing  fact,"  writes  an  English  woman  who  had  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  Turkey,  "that  an  idea  of  impropriety  is  attached  by  Europeans 
who  have  never  visited  the  East,  to  the  very  name  of  harem,  while  it  is  not 
less  laughable  they  can  never  give  a  reason  for  their  prejudice.  How  little 
foundation  exists  for  so  unaccountable  a  fancy  must  be  evident  at  once  when 
it  is  stated  that  harem,  or  woman's  apartment,  is  held  so  sacred  by  the  Turks 
themselves,  that  they  remain  inviolate  even  in  cases  of  popular  disturbance, 
or  individual  delinquency;  the  mob  never  suffering  their  violence  to  betray 
them  into  an  intrusion  on  the  wives  of  their  victims;  and  the  search  after 
a  fugitive  ceasing  the  moment  that  the  door  of  the  harem  separates  him 
from  his  pursuers."  Julia  Pardoe,  in  The  Bosphorus  and  the  Danube,  p.  126 
(London,  1839). 

Another  Englisb  woman,  Grace  Ellison,  who  is  familiar  with  the  life  of 
the  harem  and  who  has  given  public  lectures  in  London  on  Turkish  life, 
was  seriously  told  by  the  secretary  of  a  certain  society:  *'You  must  not 
put  the  word  'harem'  on  the  title  of  your  lecture.  Many  who  might  come 
to  hear  you  would  stay  away  for  fear  of  bearing  improper  revelations,  and 
others  would  come  hoping  to  hear  those  revelations  and  go  away  dis- 
appointed!" Cf.  A  Turkish  Woman's  European  Impressions,  p.  16  (by 
Zeyneb  Hanoum,  Philadelphia,  1913). 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA     127 

husband — his  reception  room  where  he  receives  his  male 
friends — is  known  as  selamlik,  and  is  generally  on  the 
ground  floor.  The  women 's  apartment  is  always  recognized 
by  its  screened  windows.  The  occupants  of  the  haremlik 
can  thus  see  everything  in  the  immediate  vicinity  without 
being  seen. 

The  name  harem  applies  not  only  to  the  wife's  part  of 
the  home  but  also  to  the  sections  reserved  for  women  on 
tram  cars  and  steamers,  and  to  the  women's  waiting  rooms 
in  railway  stations  and  women's  compartments  on  railway 
trains.  The  harem,  thus  understood,  is  an  institution  that 
has  very  much  to  recommend  it.  It  secures  its  occupants 
a  privacy  which,  in  the  estimation  of  Oriental  women,  more 
than  counterbalances  their  apparent  loss  of  liberty. 

But,  contrary  to  what  is  usually  thought,  the  harem  is 
not  a  Mohammedan  institution.  It  long  antedates  Islam 
for,  as  archseological  investigations  in  the  Orient  clearly 
evince,  there  were  separate  apartments  for  women  in  the 
buildings  of  ancient  Persia,  Assyria,  and  Babylonia." 

Nor  do  the  inmates  of  the  harem  consider  themselves 
as  imprisoned  in  their  houses  like  birds  in  a  cage.  Far 
from  it.  Mrs.  Meer  Ali,  an  English  lady  who  married  a 
Mohammedan  gentleman  and  resided  twelve  years  in  Luck- 


6  For  an  illuminating  account  of  an  Assyrian  harem  in  the  time  of  Sargon, 
more  than  seven  centuries  B.  C,  see  Bistoire  de  I'Art  dans  Antiquity,  Tom. 
II,  p.  435,  et.  seq.  (by  G.  Perrot  and  Chipiez,  Paris  1884).  See  also  the 
account  of  the  prehistoric  palace  of  the  Kings  of  Tiryns,  as  given  in  Schlie- 
mann's  Tiryns,  p.  239,  et.  seq.  (New  York,  1885).  According  to  Dr.  Dorpfeld 
and  other  eminent  archaeologists  this  palace,  the  oldest  in  Greece,  is  distinctly 
oriental  in  plan  and  its  smaller  megaron  was  obviously  a  harem.  Cf.  also 
Schuchardt's  Schliemann's  Excavations,  p.  31.  For  interesting  descrip- 
tions of  visits  to  harems  in  Turkey  and  Syria,  consult  the  Bosphorus  and  the 
Danube,  p.  125,  et  seq.  (by  Julia  Pardoe,  London,  1839),  and  the  Inner  Life 
of  Syria,  Chap,  XI  (by  Lady  Isabel  Burton,  London,  1884).  Both  of  these 
women  during  their  sojourn  in  the  East,  had  exceptional  opportunities  for 
studying  the  real  life  of  the  harem  where  they  were  always  cordially  welcomed 
by  its  inmates. 

The  custom  of  wearing  the  veil,  it  may  here  be  remarked,  dates  back  almost 
as  far,  if  not  fully  as  far,  as  the  harem.  Cf.  Genesis,  xxii:65,  and  Isaiah, 
iii:23.  Nor  is  the  wearing  of  the  veil  in  the  Orient  to-day  confined  entirely 
to  Moslem  women.  Christian  and  other  non-Moslem  women  wear  it  and 
have  worn  it  from  time  immemorial.  How  erroneous,  therefore,  is  the  state- 
ment, so  often  made,  that  it  was  Mohammed  that  imposed  the  veil  on  the 
women  of  the  Orient  and  inhumanly  incarcerated  them  in  the  harem  I 


128  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

now,  India,  clearly  states  the  Oriental  women's  view  of 
harem  life  when  she  writes : 

To  ladies  accustomed  from  infancy  to  confinement,  this 
kind  of  life  is  by  no  means  irksome.  They  have  their 
employments  and  their  amusements,  and  though  these  are 
not  exactly  to  our  tastes,  nor  suited  to  our  mode  of  educa- 
tion, they  are  not  the  less  relished  by  those  for  whom  they 
were  invented.  They,  perhaps,  wonder  equally  at  some  of 
our  modes  of  dissipating  time  and  fancy  we  might  spend 
it  more  profitably.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  Muslim  ladies, 
with  whom  I  have  been  long  intimate,  appear  to  me  always 
happy,  contented  and  satisfied  with  the  seclusion  to  which 
they  were  born ;  they  desire  no  other,  and  I  have  ceased  to 
regret  that  they  cannot  be  made  partakers  of  that  freedom 
of  intercourse  with  the  world  we  deem  so  essential  to  our 
happiness,  since  their  health  suffers  nothing  from  that  con- 
finement by  which  they  are  preserved  from  a  variety  of 
snares  and  temptations ;  besides  which  they  would  deem  it 
disgraceful  in  the  highest  degree  to  mix  indiscriminately 
with  men  who  are  not  relations.  They  are  educated  from 
infancy  for  retirement  and  they  can  have  no  wish  that  the 
custom  should  be  changed  which  keeps  them  apart  from 
the  society  of  men  who  are  not  very  nearly  related  to  them. 
Female  society  is  unlimited  and  they  enjoy  it  without 
restraint.* 

What  has  been  said  of  the  harem  may  also  be  asserted  of 
the  yashmak — the  veil  worn  by  most  Oriental  women,  irre- 
spective of  race  or  creed.  When  women  appear  in  public, — 
and  they  have  great  liberty  in  this  respect,  if  properly 
veiled — this  garb  or  the  tcharchajf,  possesses  many  advan- 
tages which  Christian  as  well  as  Moslem  women  would  be 
loath  to  forego.  For  like  the  latticed  window  of  the  harem 
it  enables  them  to  see  without  being  seen  and  like  the  caliph 
of  the  story,  they  can  freely  move  through  a  crowd  without 
having  their  identity  known.  Furthermore,  when  envel- 
oped in  her  ferijee — cloak — and  yashmak,  the  person  of 
the  Oriental  woman  is  as  secure  as  in  the  harem  and  she  is 

^Observations  on  the  Mussulmans  of  India,  p.   168    (London,   1917). 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA     129 

thus  safeguarded  against  all  the  annoyances  and  insults 
to  which  her  western  sisters,  especially  those  in  the  larger 
cities,  are  so  frequently  exposed.  Some  of  the  Ottoman 
suffragettes  of  Stamboul  may  envy  the  European  women 
their  gorgeous  Parisian  hats  and  gowns,  but  I  am  quite 
convinced  that  many  western  women  would  gladly  exchange 
the  creations  of  Worth  and  Redfern  for  the  tcharchaff  or 
for  the  ferijee  and  the  yashmak,  or  for  the  hash-oordoo 
and  the  yeldirmee — which  serve  the  same  purpose — and  all 
the  immunities  and  privileges  which  these  kinds  of  apparel 
secure  to  the  wearer. 

Again  much  has  been  said  about  the  cruel  treatment 
which  Ottoman  women  have  to  endure  from  their  husbands. 
To  judge  by  the  accounts  of  certain  writers  who  substitute 
fancy  for  fact,  the  average  Turkish  husband  is  a  Bluebeard 
who  makes  his  wife's  life  one  continuous  martyrdom.  Such 
reports  are  as  ill-founded  as  all  the  fantastic  tales  that 
have  so  long  obtained  credence  respecting  the  harem  and 
other  matters  pertaining  to  the  everyday  life  of  the  Otto- 
man Turk.  But,  as  in  these  things  it  is  impossible  for  a  man 
to  obtain  first-hand  information,  I  shall  quote  from  a 
woman  who  had  exceptional  opportunities  of  becoming 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  home  life  of  the  Osmanlis 
of  Anatolia  and  whose  conclusions,  therefore,  are  of  pre- 
ponderant value. 

This  woman  is  Lady  Eamsay,  the  gifted  wife  of  Sir  W.  M. 
Ramsay,  the  distinguished  archaeologist  of  Aberdeen.  Pro- 
fessor Ramsay  whose  investigations  in  Anatolia  extend 
over  a  period  of  thirty-five  years  is  probably  the  greatest 
living  authority  on  the  history  of  this  part  of  Asia  and  on 
the  manners  and  customs  of  its  inhabitants.  As  Lady  Ram- 
say frequently  accompanied  her  husband  on  his  expeditions 
which  led  him  to  very  nook  and  corner  of  the  country,  she 
had  absolutely  unique  opportunities  for  studying  the  home 
life  of  the  Ottoman  women  of  Asia  Minor.  As  a  result  of 
her  observations  she  does  not  hesitate  to  declare  that 
"cases  of  brutality  on  the  part  of  a  man  towards  his  wife 


130  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

are  a  hundred  times  commoner  among  the  lower  classes  of 
this  country" — G-reat  Britain — "than  they  are  in  Tur- 
key."^ 

Such  testimony  coming  from  a  witness  so  competent  and 
so  impartial  should  be  conclusive.  The  reports  to  the  con- 
trary of  men  who  have  traveled  in  Anatolia  are  of  no  value 
whatever,  for  the  simple  reason  that  these  men  could  not 
possibly  get  information  at  first  hand.  For  the  harem  is 
everywhere  absolutely  barred  to  them,  and  what  informa- 
tion they  might  get  would  necessarily  be  based  on  idle 
rumor  and  therefore  quite  valueless.  Women,  however, 
even  when  total  strangers,  are  always  hospitably  received 
by  their  Ottoman  sisters.  And  if  they  are  able  to  speak  the 
language  of  the  country,  they  have  little  difficulty  in  becom- 
ing quite  familiar  with  the  everyday  life  of  the  people.  But 
men,  no  matter  how  extensive  their  travels  in  Anatolia, 
will  all  be  forced  to  confess  with  a  noted  English  traveler — 
** throughout  our  journey,  the  female  sex  may  be  said  not 
to  have  existed  for  us  at  all."* 

Much  has  been  said  about  the  divorce  evil  in  Turkey. 

"i  Everyday  Life  in  Turkey,  p.  108  (London,  1897). 

The  Princess  Christina  Belgiojoso  who  spent  three  years  in  making  a  care- 
ful study  of  the  people  of  Asia  Minor  writes:  "The  household  of  the  Turkish 
peasant  resembles  that  of  the  Christian  peasant  and,  I  am  sorry  to  add, 
the  former  would  often  serve  as  a  model  for  the  latter.  With  equal 
fidelity,  the  advantage  is  in  favor  of  the  Turk,  for  his  fidelity  is  neither 
imposed  on  him  by  civil  or  religious  law,  nor  by  public  opinion,  nor  by  local 
manners,  customs  and  usages;  he  is  led  to  it  simply  through  the  goodness 
of  his  nature  to  which  any  idea  of  causing  grief  to  his  associate  would  be 
repugnant. 

"The  Turkish  peasant  cherishes  his  companion  as  parent  and  as  lover; 
never  does  he  knowingly  or  willingly  oppose  her;  there  is  no  provocation 
to  which  he  will  not  cheerfully  submit  through  love  for  her.  ...  I  have 
seen  women  old,  decrepit,  infirm  and  hideous,  led,  comforted  and  adored  by 
fine  old  men  with  long,  flowing,  silvery  beards,  strong,  serene  eye  and  as 
erect  as  mountain  firs."  Oriental  Harems  and  Scenery,  p.  108-110  (New 
York,  1862). 

8  A  well-known  English  journalist,  Sidney  Whitman,  who  was  long  on  terms 
of  intimacy  with  some  of  the  most  distinguished  men  of  the  Ottoman  Empire, 
tells  us  that  "The  stranger,  whatever  his  opportunities,  only  comes  into 
contact  with  one-half  of  the  Mohammedan  population;  the  other  is  barred 
from  his  observation,  from  his  very  sight.  In  the  course  of  all  my  visits 
to  Turkey  I  never  had  an  opportunity  of  approaching  a  Turkish  woman 
within  speaking  distance."     Turkish  Memories,  p.  267   (London,  1914). 

Writing  from  Constantinople,  where  she  made  a  special  study  of  the  Turks, 
their  manners  and  customs,  the  gifted  and  brilliant  Lady  Mary  Wortley 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA     131 

No  doubt  this  does  constitute  a  foul  blot  on  the  social  sys- 
tem of  Islam  but  it  is  not  so  bad  as  it  is  usually  represented. 
The  Koran  safeguards  the  rights  of  the  wife  in  many  ways 
and  public  opinion  is  daily  becoming  more  opposed  to  a 
man's  arbitrary  repudiation  of  his  wife.  In  spite,  however, 
of  the  present  facile  dissolution  of  the  marriage  bond  the 
frequency  of  divorce  in  Anatolia  is  far  less  than  in  many 
parts  of  the  United  States. 

The  Turkish  wife  [writes  another  English  traveler  who 
had  spent  many  years  in  the  Ottoman  Empire]  has  been 
called  a  slave  and  a  chattel.  She  is  neither.  Indeed  her 
legal  status  is  preferable  to  that  of  the  majority  of  the 
wives  in  Europe  and,  until  enactments  of  a  comparatively 
recent  date,  the  English  was  far  more  of  a  chattel  than  the 
Turkish  wife  who  has  always  had  absolute  control  of  her 
property.  The  law  allows  her  the  free  use  and  disposal 
of  anything  she  may  possess  at  the  time  of  her  marriage,  or 
that  she  may  inherit  afterwards.  She  may  distribute  it 
during  her  life,  or  she  may  bequeath  it  to  whom  she  chooses. 
In  the  eyes  of  the  law  she  is  a  free  agent.  She  may  act 
independently  of  her  husband,  may  sue  in  the  courts  or  may 
be  proceeded  against  without  regard  to  him.* 

Montague,  tella  her  correspondent  in  England,  "It  is  a  particular  pleasure 
to  me  here  to  read  the  voyages  of  the  Levant  which  are  generally  so  far 
removed  from  the  truth  and  so  full  of  absurdities.  I  am  very  well  diverted 
with  them.  They  never  fail  giving  you  an  account  of  the  women  whom  it 
is  certain  they  never  saw  and  talking  wisely  of  men,  into  whose  company 
they  are  never  admitted,  and  very  often  describe  mosques  which  they  dared 
not  even  peep  into."    Letters,  Vol.  II,  p.  5   (London,  1793). 

As  wife  of  the  British  ambassador  to  the  Porte,  Lady  Mary  had  the  entrSe 
of  the  homes  of  the  Turks,  rich  and  poor,  where  she  was  always  cordially 
received  and  hospitably  entertained.  Besides  this,  she  was  familiar  with 
the  language  of  her  hostesses  of  the  harems  which  she  visited  and  was  thus 
able  to  become  far  more  intimately  acquainted  with  the  people  than  those 
who  must  needs  depend  on  unreliable  interpreters.  For  these  reasons  her 
sprightly  pictures  of  the  life  of  the  Turkish  women  have  always  had  special 
value  and  one  can  easily  understand  her  admiration  for  them  and  for  many 
of  their  customs  which  a;e  so  different  from  those  of  her  own  country — England. 
She  would  have  fully  endorsed  what  her  distinguished  countrywoman,  Lady 
Isabel  Burton  wrote  many  years  afterwards:  "As  a  rule  I  met  with  nothing 
but  courtesy  in  the  harems  and  much  hospitality,  cordiality  and  refine- 
ment." The  Romance  of  Isabel  Lady  Burton:  The  Story  of  Her  Life  Told  in 
Part  by  Herself  and  in  Part  by  W.  H.  Wilkina,  Vol.  II,  p.  452  (New  York, 
1897). 

»  Turkey  and  the  Turks,  p.  84,  et  aeq.  (by  Z.  D.  Ferriman,  New  York,  1911 ). 

"There  has  been,"  writes  an  American  woman  who  has  had  exceptional 


132  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

The  same  author,  in  referring  to  the  attachment  of  hus- 
band and  wife  for  each  other,  declares  that  among  the  Turk- 
ish peasantry  **one  meets  with  Darby  and  Joan  as  fre- 
quently as  in  England."" 

**How  far  removed  are  we  then,"  asks  an  Ottoman  gen- 
tleman, ''from  the  seductive  odalisques  whose  pictures,  in 
the  East,  are  only  to  be  seen  on  biscuit  tins."  " 

But  a  stranger  error  than  any  yet  referred  to  is  that 
which  asserts  that  the  Ottomans  and  Mohammedans  gen- 
erally deny  to  women  the  possession  of  a  soul  as  well  as  a 
future  existence-  How  such  an  opinion  originated  or 
gained  such  wide  acceptance  is  impossible  to  say.  I  have 
never  known  an  Ottoman  to  hold  such  a  view,  and  there  is 
certainly  no  warrant  for  it  in  the  Koran.  And  yet  in  an 
article  on  "Woman's  Place  in  the  World,"  written  but  a 
few  years  ago  by  a  noted  duchess  in  England,  it  is  explicitly 
stated  that  Mohammedanism  "consigns  woman,  as  far  as 
psychic  qualities  are  concerned,  to  the  level  of  beasts,  for- 
bidding her  forever  the  hope  of  salvation."" 

A  few  quotations  from  the  Koran  will  suffice  to  show  how 
groundless  is  this  statement.  In  the  twentieth  sura — 
chapter — ^we  read: 

0  my  servants — enter  ye  into  Paradise,  ye  and  your 
wives,  with  great  joy. 

Again  the  Koran  declares : 

But  he  who  doeth  good  works — be  it  male  or  female — and 
believes,  they  shall  enter  into  Paradise. 

opportunities  for  studying  the  condition  of  women  in  Turkey,  ''a  vast  amount 
of  pity  wasted  upon  the  Moslem  woman.  It  may  surprise  even  the  woman 
suffragist  to  learn  that  the  laws  of  Mohammed  confer  upon  women  a  greater 
degree  of  legal  protection  than  any  code  of  laws  since  the  middle  Homan  law. 
The  more  recent  liberties  and  protection  granted  to  married  women  by  the 
laws  of  divorce  and  the  exclusive  property  rights  now  in  the  United  States 
alone  can  be  properly  compared  to  those  in  force  in  Turkey."  In  the  Palaces 
of  the  Sultan,  pp.  448,  449  (by  Anna  Bowman  Dodd,  New  York,  1903). 
^0  Ibid. 

11  The  Evil  of  the  East,  or  Truths  about  Turkey,  p.  42  (London,  1888). 

12  See  the  North  American  Review, 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLI^     133 

In  the  thirty-third  sura  it  is  written : 

Verily  the  Moslems  of  either  sex,  and  the  true  believers 
of  either  sex,  and  the  devout  men  and  the  devout  women, 
and  the  men  of  veracity  and  the  women  of  veracity,  and  the 
patient  men  and  the  patient  women,  and  the  humble  men 
and  the  humble  women,  and  the  almsgivers  of  either  sex, 
and  the  men  who  fast  and  women  who  fast,  and  the  chaste 
men  and  the  chaste  women,  and  those  of  either  sex  who 
remember  God  frequently,  for  them  hath  God  prepared 
forgiveness  and  a  great  reward. 

According  to  the  teaching  of  Mohammed,  all  true  Mos- 
lems are  enjoined  to  pray  for  the  dead — for  the  women  as 
well  as  for  the  men.  This,  of  itself,  is  sufficient  evidence  of 
Islamic  belief  in  the  future  life  for  all  mankind,  irre- 
spective of  sex.  There  are,  doubtless,  in  Turkey  as  else- 
where, men  who  deny  immortality  to  women,  but  these  are 
confined  to  that  class  of  Moslems  "who,  having  made  ship- 
wreck of  their  faith,"  prefer  to  class  themselves  with  the 
beasts  of  the  field  by  denying  that  they  themselves  have 
souls. 

Surprising  as  it  may  seem  to  some,  no  more  beautiful 
tributes  to  women  can  be  found  than  those  given  in  the 
Koran,  or  in  the  Hadith  which  contains  the  traditional 
teachings  of  Mohammed.  In  one  place  the  Prophet  declares 
**the  world  and  all  things  in  it  are  valuable  but  more  valu- 
able than  all  is  a  virtuous  woman";  in  another  he  asserts 
that  "women  are  the  twin-halves  of  men."  Again,  he  tells 
his  followers  that  "the  son  gains  Paradise  at  the  feet  of 
the  mother ' ' ;  and  yet  again  we  have  his  truly  remarkable 
statement  that  "Paradise  is  beneath  the  ground  on  which 
mothers  walk."  Are  not  these  amazing  words  to  proceed 
from  the  lips  of  a  seventh  century  Arabian? 

One  need  spend  but  little  time  in  Anatolia  to  find  that 
the  men  among  the  Osmanlis  are  a  most  lovable  people. 
What  first  impresses  one  is  their  good  manners.  "Whether 
they  live  in  a  palace  or  a  hovel  they  are  always  self-respect- 


134  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

ing,  courteous,  and  dignified.  In  this  respect  they  continu- 
ally remind  one  of  the  people  of  Spain  where  courtesy  is  a 
national  heritage.  It  was  this  striking  characteristic  of  the 
Osmanli  that  led  Bismarck  to  declare : 

In  the  Orient  the  only  gentleman  is  the  Turk.^^ 

Another  national  characteristic  of  the  Osmanlis  is  clean- 
liness. Their  homes,  however  humble,  are  as  scrupulously 
swept  and  scrubbed  as  a  Dutch  dwelling  place.^*  And  the 
same  may  be  said  of  their  coffeehouses  and  restaurants. 
In  this  respect  they  are  in  marked  contrast  with  those  of 
the  Greeks  and  Arabs. 

Many  writers  have  endeavored  to  account  for  the  excep- 
tional courtesy  and  cleanliness  of  the  Osmanlis,  but  the  rea- 
sons usually  advanced  are  far  from  satisfactory.  **  Their 
religion,"  writes  Sir  Edwin  Pears,  'inculcates  cleanliness 
and  sobriety;  ...  it  has  helped  to  diffuse  courtesy  and 
self-respect  among  its  adherents."^" 

If  this  were  true  it  should  hold  good  for  the  Moslems  of 

13  Lieutenant  Wood  in  his  "Journey  to  the  Source  of  the  Oxus,"  p.  194 
(London,  1872),  writes:  "Nowhere  is  the  difference  between  European  and 
Mohammedan  society  more  strongly  marked  than  in  the  lower  walks  of  life. 
The  broad  line  that  separates  the  rich  and  poor  in  civilized  society  is 
as  yet  but  faintly  drawn  in  Central  Asia.  Here  unreserved  intercourse 
between  their  superiors  has  polished  the  manners  of  the  lower  classes  and, 
instead  of  this  familiarity  breeding  contempt,  it  begets  self-respect  in  the 
dependent.  .  .  .  Indeed,  all  the  inferior  classes  possess  an  innate  self- 
respect  and  a  natural  gravity  of  deportment  which  differs  as  far  from  the 
suppleness  of  a  Hindustani  as  from  the  awkward  rusticity  of  an  English 
clown."  These  characteristics  of  the  people  of  Central  Asia,  which  so 
impressed  the  gallant  explorer  of  the  Oxus,  are  much  more  striking  in 
the  inhabitants  of  Anatolia. 

Another  author  writes:  "The  fine  manners  of  all  classes  of  Mohammedans 
in  Constantinople  were  a  constant  source  of  admiration  to  me.  It  was  as  if 
the  grace  and  dignity  of  past  times — of  Courts  of  the  eighteenth  century — 
had  taken  refuge  in  Stamboul.  Your  Caiquejee,  your  Cafeje  and  the  very 
boot-blacks,  if  they  are  Mohammedans,  know  how  to  be  unobtrusively  polite 
and  well-bred  towards  each  other,  and  even  towards  the  Giaour  himself, 
if  he  treats  them  civilly.  The  older  fashioned,  the  more  prejudiced,  the  Turk- 
ish gentleman,  the  finer  are  his  manners,  the  more  gracious  and  delightful 
his  welcome."  The  Sultan  and  His  Subjects,  Vol.  1,  pp.  280,  281  (by  Richard 
Davy,  New  York,  1897). 

14  "The  houses  of  the  great  Turkish  ladies,"  declares  that  keen  observer. 
Lady  Montague,  "are  kept  clean  with  as  much  nicety  as  those  in  Holland." 
Letters,  Vol.  II,  p.  24   (London,  1793). 

ii  Destruction  of  the  Greek  Empire,  p.  524  (London,  1903). 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA     135 

Egypt  and  Morocco  which,  as  all  travelers  in  these  coun- 
tries know,  is  very  often  far  from  the  case.  When  we  shall 
be  able  to  assign  a  reason  for  the  matchless  courtesy  of  the 
Castilian  hidalgo  or  for  the  Dutch  hausfrau's  singular  love 
of  cleanliness,  we  shall  probably  find  an  acceptable  explana- 
tion of  the  seemingly  innate  courtesy  and  cleanliness  of  the 
Osmanlis  of  Anatolia. 

And  contrary  to  almost  universal  belief,  the  Osmanlis, 
both  men  and  women  are  a  people  of  very  industrious  hab- 
its. This  is  particularly  true  of  those  who  make  their  living 
by  tilling  the  soil  and  by  tending  their  flocks  and  herds.  So 
far  as  the  men  are  concerned  the  traveler  has  ample  evi- 
dence of  their  toilsome  lives  from  the  time  he  leaves  the 
swift-floAving  Bosphorus  until  he  arrives  at  the  foothills  of 
the  picturesque  Taurus.  As  to  the  women  they  are,  accord- 
ing to  those  who  know  them  best,  as  laborious  as  the  men. 
A  competent  witness,  one  who  is  himself  an  Ottoman,  who 
was  born  and  bred  in  Anatolia  and  whose  testimony  regard- 
ing the  domestic  life  of  his  countrymen  bears  the  clearest 
impress  of  truth,  is  the  clever  and  entertaining  Halil  Halid 
who,  having  spent  many  years  in  England,  writes  English 
as  a  native. 

Speaking  of  his  countrywomen  he  declares : 

No  qualities  are  so  much  sought  after  in  average  mar- 
riageable women  as  the  domestic  ones.  In  the  provinces  the 
peasant  women,  besides  managing  their  humble  domestic 
affairs,  have  to  work  in  the  fields,  more  especially  when 
their  brothers  and  husbands  are  away  discharging  their 
compulsory  military  service.  The  daughters  of  well-to-do 
people,  besides  attending  to  the  business  of  their  house- 
holds, are  indefatigable  with  their  needles  and  are  always 
busy  with  needle  work  or  embroidery." 


^0  Diary  of  a  Turk,  p.  54  (London,  1903). 

Writing  to  the  poet,  Pope,  Lady  Montague  declares:  "I  can  assure 
you  that  the  Princesses  and  great  ladies  pass  their  time  at  their  looms 
embroidering  veils  and  robes,  surrounded  by  their  maids,  which  are  always 
very  numerous,  in  the  same  manner  as  we  find  Andromache  and  Helen 
described."     Op.  cit..  Vol.  I,  p.  110. 


136  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

It  will  be  understood  from  the  details  I  have  given  [he 
continues],  that  the  popular  notion  prevailing  in  this  coun- 
try of  the  harem  and  the  life  of  the  harem  is  much  mistaken. 
Women  in  Turkish  harems  do  not  really  pass  their  time  in 
lying  on  sofas  or  couches  eating  sweetmeats  and  smoking 
water-pipes  all  the  day  long.  Of  course,  they  are  as  fond 
of  sweet-stuffs  as  most  ladies  of  this  country.  But  to  lie 
down  on  a  couch  in  the  presence  of  others  is  considered  by 
Turkish  women  vulgarity  of  the  most  disgraceful  kind. 

The  representations  of  harem  life  given  in  books  and  on 
the  stage  or  shown  in  exhibitions,  is  either  the  work  of 
Turkey's  detractors  or  simply  the  work  of  imaginative 
persons  who  know  nothing  about  it  and  whose  object  is  to 
attract  the  curiosity  of  English  people  by  exhibiting  gro- 
tesque sights  and  thus  to  make  money. 

Many  Europeans  [writes  the  same  author]  who  pay  a  fly- 
ing visit  to  the  Levant  and  hasten  to  sit  down  and  write  a 
book  about  their  experiences,  derive  all  their  information 
from  their  cicerones  and  interpreters  [worthless  and  un- 
scrupulous fellows  whom  our  author  justly  denounces  as 
ignorant  and  shameless  cheats]  who  are,  as  a  class,  of  the 
worst  products  of  non-Mussulman  natives  of  the  Levant. 
Probably  it  is  on  account  of  this  that  a  countryman  of  mine 
once  remarked:  "When  we  read  such  books,  especially 
those  written  in  English,  about  ourselves,  we  always  learn 
something  from  them  which  we  never  knew  or  heard  of 
before.  "^^ 

"But,"  it  will  be  asked,  "what  about  the  morality  of  the 
Turks"?  This  is  a  question  that  is  continually  asked  and 
about  which  as  many  erroneous  notions  prevail  as  about  the 
harem.  One  might  answer  by  saying  that,  where  passion  is 
given  free  rein,  poor  human  nature  is  about  the  same  in 
all  parts  of  the  world.  I  shall,  however,  reply  in  the  words 
of  the  witty  and  vivacious  Lady  Mary  Montague  who, 
writing  from  Constantinople  where  her  husband  was  ambas- 
sador, to  a  friend  in  England,  declares : 


17  Op.  cit.,  pp.  54,  55,  98,  99. 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA     137 

As  to  their  morality  or  good  conduct,  I  can  say,  like 
Harlequin,  that  it  is  just  as  it  is  with  you ;  and  the  Turkish 
ladies  don't  commit  one  sin  the  less  for  not  being  Christians. 
Now  that  I  am  a  little  acquainted  with  their  ways,  I  cannot 
forbear  admiring,  either  the  exemplary  discretion,  or  ex- 
treme stupidity  of  all  the  writers  that  have  given  accounts 
of  them."" 

As  to  **the  infamous  vices"  of  which  the  Mussulman 
Orient  is  said  to  be  the  chief  theater,  it  will  be  sufficient 
for  our  present  purpose  to  quote  the  words  of  one  who  has 
spent  many  years  among  the  Moslems  and  who  has,  prob- 
ably, as  thorough  a  knowledge  of  them  as  any  recent  writer. 
**Is  it,  then,  true,"  demands  the  distinguished  Count  Henri 
de  Castries,  ''that  these  vices  are  more  numerous  in  the 
Orient  than  in  the  Occident?  This  reputation  given  to 
Islam  is  the  result  of  superficial  generalizations  without 
which  travelers  would  have  scarcely  anything  to  write. 
These  vices  of  mature  age  are,  unfortunately,  common  to 
all  countries.  More  of  them  are  indulged  in  Paris,  London, 
and  Berlin  than  in  the  entire  Orient." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  people  who  are  more  distin- 
guished for  natural  virtues  than  are  the  Osmanlis  who 
have  not  been  debased  by  oppression  or  corrupted  by  power. 
Their  love  of  the  simple  life  is  remarkable.  Often  their 
only  fare  is  bread  and  water.  To  this  they  may  add  a  little 
cheese  and  fruit  and  some  vegetables.  The  majority  are 
vegetarians.  Of  those  who  are  not,  their  meat  diet  con- 
sists chiefly  of  mutton  and  fowl  which  is  usually  prepared 
with  rice  or  with  vegetables.  Beef  they  rarely  eat  and  pork 
never,  for  its  use  as  an  article  of  food  is  strictly  proscribed 
by  the  Koran. 

And  yet,  notwithstanding  their  frugal  fare,  they  are 
noted  for  their  health  and  strength.  **As  strong  as  a 
Turk"  has  long  been  a  proverb.    And  when  one  sees  the 


18-19  Letters,  Vol.  I,  p.  104. 


138  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

amazing  burdens  which  the  hamals  of  Stamboul  frequently 
carry,  one  is  ready  to  admit  that  the  proverb  is  more  than 
justified. 

The  chief  beverage  of  the  Osmanlis  is  water,  for  the 
Koran  absolutely  forbids  the  use  of  intoxicating  drinks  of 
any  kind  whatsoever.  For  the  Osmanli,  therefore,  the 
dramshop  does  not  exist.  He  does,  however,  love  his  little 
cup  of  black  coffee.  Although  the  Moslem  doctors  of  the 
law  originally  interdicted  its  use  as  the  invention  of  the 
devil,  the  drinking  of  coffee  in  Mohammedan  countries  is 
now  universal. 

I  know  of  only  one  prettier  picture  of  contentment  than 
an  Osmanli  peasant  taking  his  cup  of  coffee  before  going 
to  work  in  the  morning  or  after  the  labors  of  the  day,  and 
that  is  when  he  indulges  in  his  favorite  pastime  of  Kaif — 
which  is  perhaps  best  expressed  by  the  Italian  phrase,  dolce 
far  niente.  Garbed  in  his  brown  shalvar — baggy  trousers 
— blue  jacket,  red  sash,  and  white  stockings,  and  sitting 
before  his  home  under  a  tentlike  plane  tree,  quietly  smok- 
ing his  narghile,  with  drooped  eyelids  and  rapt  countenance, 
he  is  the  personification  of  comfort  and  happiness.  Tran- 
quil, immobile,  absorbed  in  an  enchanting  reverie,  how  far 
is  he  not  removed  from  the  unbridled  desires  and  malignant 
envy  of  the  restless  populace  of  our  large  cities  of  the 
West! 

Ah!  qu'il  est  doux  de  ne  rien  faire 
Quand  tout  s'  agite  auiour  de  nous! 

What  a  subject  for  the  brush  of  a  Villegas  or  a  Fortuny!  " 

20  The  noted  traveler  and  Orientalist,  Sir  Richard  Burton,  graphically 
defines  the  meaning  of  the  word  Kaif,  so  frequently  heard  in  the  Near  East 
as  "The  savoring  of  animal  existence;  the  passive  enjoyment  of  mere  sense; 
the  pleasant  languor,  the  dreamy  tranquillity,  the  airy  castle-building  which 
in  Asia  stands  in  lieu  of  the  vigorous,  intensive,  passionate  life  of  Europe. 
It  is  the  result  of  a  lively,  impressible,  excitable  nature  and  exquisite  sensi- 
bility of  nerve — a  facility  for  voluptuousness  unknown  to  northern  regions 
where  happiness  is  placed  in  the  exertion  of  mental  and  physical  powers; 
where  niggard  earth  commands  ceaseless  sweat  of  brow;  and  damp,  dull  air 
demands  perpetual  excitement,  exercise  or  change,  or  adventure,  or  dissipa- 
tion for  want  of  something  better.  In  the  East  man  requires  but  rest  and 
shade;  upon  the  banks  of  a  bubbling  stream  or  under  the  cool  shelter  of  a  per- 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA     139 

And  then  the  honesty  of  this  quiet  peasant  of  simple 
tastes  and  harmless  pleasures.  He  would  never  cheat  you. 
Even  if  he  be  but  a  poor  fruit  seller,  gaining  but  a  pittance 
for  a  day's  labor,  he  will  always  add  something  to  the 
amount  called  for,  for  fear  of  having  made  a  mistake  in  the 
amount  due  the  purchaser.  If  you  should  be  his  guest, 
you  may  sleep  in  his  home  with  open  doors.  Nobody  will 
molest  you  and  your  belongings  will  be  as  safe  as  if  under 
lock  and  key.  So  great,  indeed,  is  the  reputation  of  the 
Osmanli  for  probity  and  sterling  honesty  that : 

Among  men,  who  do  not  concern  themselves  with  politics, 
but  whose  fortune  and  interests  are  bound  up  in  the  coun- 
try, the  vast  majority  prefer  the  Turk  to  any  other  denizen 
of  the  land  for  his  integrity  and  trustworthiness. 

The  proof  of  it  is  that  it  is  to  him  they  confide  the  care  of 
their  property.  There  are  English  families  that  have 
existed  in  Turkey  for  generations,  and  generations  of  Turks 
have  served  them  in  positions  of  trust.  These  are  invaria- 
bly Turks  of  the  old  school,  good  Mussulmans  and  simple 
in  their  thoughts  and  lives.  A  finer  type  of  men  no  land 
can  show,  and  happily  they  are  not  yet  rare.^^ 

Nor  does  one  find  elsewhere  such  humane  treatment  of 
dumb  animals.  **Fear  God  with  regard  to  animals,"  en- 
joined Mohammed,  *'ride  them  when  they  are  fit  to  be  rid- 
den and  get  off  when  they  are  tired.  Verily  there  are 
rewards  for  our  doing  good  to  dumb  animals  and  giving 

fumed  tree  he  is  perfectly  happy  smoking  a  pipe,  or  sipping  a  cup  of  coffee, 
or  drinking  a  glass  of  sherbert,  but,  above  all  things,  deranging  his  body  and 
mind  as  little  as  possible;  the  trouble  of  conversations,  the  displeasures  of 
memory  and  the  vanity  of  thought  being  the  most  unpleasant  interruptions 
to  his  Kaif.  No  wonder  that  Kaif  is  a  word  untranslatable  in  our  mother- 
tongue."  Personal  Narrative  of  a  Pilgrimage  to  El-Medinah  and  Meccah, 
pp.  23,  24    (Boston,   1859). 

21  Ferriman,  op.  cit,  p.  334.  Professor  W.  M.  Ramsay,  than  whom  no  one 
has  a  more  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Osmanlis,  writes:  "Whenever  any  work 
has  to  be  done  for  which  absolute  honesty  is  required,  there  is  always  a  Turk 
employed;  they  are  human  watchdogs  whom  everybody  employs  and  trusts." 
Impressions  of  Turkey  During  Twelve  Years  Wanderings,  p.  43  (London, 
1897). 

Dr.  Schliemann  bears  the  same  testimony  to  their  honesty  and  trustworthi- 
ness in  his  Troja,  pp.  10,  11. 


140  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

them  water  to  drink."  No  Society  for  the  Prevention  of 
Cruelty  to  Animals  is  needed  among  the  Osmanlis  for  so 
strong  a  sympathy  exists  between  this  gentle  and  tender- 
hearted people  and  all  domestic  animals  that  anything  like 
cruel  treatment  would  be  impossible.  Even  the  dog,  which 
is  considered  as  an  unclean  animal,  is  always  treated  with 
kindness.  An  Osmanli  will  gather  together  the  folds  of 
his  garments  to  prevent  his  coming  in  contact  with  the 
impure  brute  but  will  at  the  same  time  gladly  divide  with 
it  his  last  morsel  of  food. 

There  are  few  writers  who  are  more  familiar  with  the 
real  Ottomans  than  the  distinguished  Academician,  Pierre 
Loti.    And  this  is  what  he  says  of  them : 

Nowhere,  so  much  as  among  the  Turks — the  real  Turks — 
does  one  find  solicitude  for  the  poor,  the  helpless,  the  aged 
and  for  children;  such  respect  for  parents,  such  tender 
veneration  for  the  mother.  If  a  man,  even  of  mature  years, 
should  be  seated  in  one  of  those  innocent  little  cafes,  where 
alcohol  has  always  been  unknown,  and  his  father  should 
unexpectedly  enter,  he  rises,  lowers  his  voice,  extinguishes 
his  cigarette,  and  humbly  takes  a  seat  behind  him." 


Elsewhere  the  same  sympathetic  and  magnanimous 
author  writes : 

Their  little  towns  located  in  the  interior,  their  villages, 
their  country  homes,  are  the  last  refuges  not  only  of  the 
calm  but  also  of  the  patriarchal  virtues  which  are  more  and 
more  disappearing  from  our  modern  world:  loyalty  and 
honesty  without  blemish ;  veneration  of  children  for  parents 
of  a  kind  that  is  not  longer  known  to  us ;  inexhaustible  hos- 
pitality and  chivalrous  respect  for  guests ;  moral  elegance 
and  native  delicacy,  even  among  the  most  humble ;  kindness 
towards  all — even  towards  animals;  unbounded  religious 
tolerance  for  whomsoever  is  not  their  enemy;  serene  faith 

nTurquie  Agoniaante,  p.  49   (Paris,  1913). 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA     141 

and  prayer.  When  arriving  among  them  after  leaving  our 
Occident  of  doubt  and  cynicism,  of  noise  and  scrap-iron, 
one  feels  as  if  suffused  with  peace  and  confidence  and 
believes  he  has  remounted  the  course  of  time  towards  some 
indeterminate  epoch,  near,  perhaps,  to  the  Golden  Age." 

In  Anatolia  particularly  are  applicable  the  words  of  the 
English  traveler,  Walpole,  who,  when  speaking  of  the  hos- 
pitability  of  the  people  of  Turkey,  tells  us  that  **in  the 
East  alone  now  do  we  find  in  the  Oda  Nessafer  of  the 
village  the  guest-chamber  of  Plato.  A  sum  is  set  apart  by 
the  government  for  supplying  these;  though  usually  the 
more  wealthy  traveler  repays  what  he  receives,  adding  a 
small  gratuity. ' '  ^* 

In  hospitality  the  Osmanlis  of  to-day  are  heirs  of  the 
best  traditions  of  the  Greeks  of  old  who,  as  Homer  informs 
us,  were  wont  to  say : 

For  Jove  unfolds  our  hospitable  door: 

'Tis  Jove  that  sends  the  stranger  and  the  poor.^' 

One  of  the  most  striking  instances  of  Osmanli  hospitality 
of  which  I  have  recently  heard  is  an  experience  of  my  good 
Franciscan  friend,  the  Reverend  Paschal  Robinson,  Pro- 
fessor of  History  in  the  Catholic  University  of  America 
in  Washington,  D.  C.  Some  years  ago  he  had  occasion  to 
travel  through  the  greater  part  of  Asia  Minor.  During  the 
seven  months  of  his  journey  he  was  always  the  guest  of 
the  Turks,  who  were  all  Moslems.  And  yet,  although  he 
was  an  entire  stranger  among  them,  the  generous  and  cour- 
teous Osmanlis  everywhere  received  him  with  the  most 
cordial  hospitality.  Not  only  did  they  supply  him  gratis 
with  food  and  shelter,  but  they  also  provided  him  with  the 
necessary  means  of  transportation  from  one  place  to 
another.  And  never  would  they  accept  the  slightest  com- 
pensation for  their  services. 

23  Les  Massacres  d'Arm6nie,  pp.  19,  20   (Paris,  1918). 

2*  Ansayrii,  Vol.  II,  p.  144  (London,  1851).    Cf.  Schliemann'a  Troja,  p.  338. 

26  The  Odyssey,  XIV,  57,  68. 


142  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

My  actual  traveling  expenses  during  these  seven  months 
[Father  Paschal  assures  me]  were  the  equivalent  of  only- 
seven  American  dollars.  And,  although  the  passport  re- 
quirements in  Turkey  have  always  been  exceedingly  strict, 
I  never  carried  a  passport  and  nobody  ever  asked  me  for 
one.  My  habit  which  I  always  wore  in  Anatolia  was  my 
passport. 

But  for  members  of  his  order.  Father  Paschal 's  case  is 
not  exceptional.  In  Moslem  lands  the  Sons  of  St.  Francis 
are  always  shown  similar  kindness  and  consideration  and 
have  been  ever  since  the  famous  interview  of  the  Poverello 
of  Assisi  with  the  Sultan  of  Egypt  at  Damietta  eight  hun- 
dred years  ago.  Can  greater  hospitality  be  found  in  other 
lands? 

By  the  hammering  reiteration  of  a  tradition  which,  for 
most  part,  had  its  origin  in  the  reports  of  imaginative  trav- 
elers and  which  has,  in  recent  years,  been  greatly  fostered 
by  a  subsidized  press  bent  on  forcing  the  dismemberment 
of  the  Ottoman  Empire,  the  Osmanlis  have  been  pictured 
as  monsters  of  cruelty.  To  judge  by  certain  propaganda 
articles  and  brochures  which,  within  recent  years,  have  been 
given  world-wide  currency,  the  average  Ottoman  is  like 
the  viceroy  described  in  Don  Quixote,  who  **  every  day 
hanged  a  slave;  impaled  one;  cut  off  the  ears  of  another; 
and  this  upon  so  little  animus,  or  so  entirely  without  cause, 
that  the  Turks  would  own  he  did  it  merely  for  the  sake  of 
doing  it,  and  because  it  was  his  nature.  "^^  People  who 
have  lived  among  the  Osmanlis  and  have  learned  to  admire 
their  gentleness  and  sense  of  justice  would  denounce  such 
a  characterization  as  absurd. 

** During  the  two  years  I  have  traversed  the  country," 
writes  a  French  Colonel  from  Asia  Minor,  "I  have  never 
heard  of  a  murder  or  a  theft."  This  is  not  the  evidence 
of  a  solitary  witness.  Innumerable  foreigners  who  have 
resided  in  Anatolia  could  give  similar  testimony.^' 

2«  Don  Quixote,  Part  I,  Chap.  XL. 

«7  Of.  Pierre  Loti  in  Turquie  Agonisante,  p.  49  (Paris,  1913). 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA     143 

Nor  does  it  apply  only  to  the  Osmanlis  of  the  present 
time.  History  abounds  in  like  testimony  regarding  them 
in  every  century  of  their  history. 

It  is  surprising  [writes  the  historian  Finlay]  how  well 
the  Ottoman  government  preserved  tranquillity  in  its  exten- 
sive dominions,  and  established  a  greater  degree  of  security 
for  property  among  the  middle  classes,  than  generally  pre- 
vailed in  European  states  during  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries.  This  end  was  obtained  by  a  regular  police,  and 
by  the  prompt  execution  of  a  rude  species  of  justice  in 
cases  of  flagrant  abuses  and  crimes.  In  the  populous  cities 
of  the  Ottoman  Empire,  and  particularly  in  Constantinople, 
which  contained  more  inhabitants  than  any  three  Christian 
capitals,  the  order  which  reigned  in  the  midst  of  a  great 
social  corruption,  caused  by  extreme  wealth,  the  conflux  of 
many  different  nations,  and  the  bigotry  of  several  hostile 
religions,  excited  the  wonder  and  admiration  of  every 
observant  stranger.  Perfect  self-reliance,  imperturbable 
equanimity,  superiority  to  the  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  and 
a  calm  temper,  compensated  among  the  Ottomans  for  laws 
which  were  notoriously  defective  and  tribunals  which  were 
infamously  venal. 

Knolles  says,  ''You  seldom  see  a  murder  or  a  theft  com- 
mitted by  any  Turk. ' '  European  gentlemen  accustomed  to 
the  barbarous  custom  of  wearing  swords  on  all  occasions, 
were  surprised  to  see  Turks  of  the  highest  rank,  distin- 
guished for  their  valor  and  military  exploits,  walking  about 
even  in  provincial  towns,  unarmed,  secure  in  the  power  of 
public  order  and  the  protection  of  the  executive  authority 
in  the  State.^^ 

But,  it  is  asked,  do  not  the  reported  atrocities  of  the 

28  A  Eiatory  of  Greece  from  its  Conquest  by  the  Romans  to  the  Present 
Time,  Vol.  V,  p.  161  (Oxford,  1877).  Finlay  gives  the  following  quotation 
from  the  Turco-Orceoia,  p.  487,  of  Crusius  who  writes  as  vigorously  in  favor 
of  the  Osmanlis  as  Knolles  or  Pierre  Loti. 

"Et  mirum  est  inter  barbaros  in  tanta  tant»  urbi  colluvie  nuUas  csedes 
audiri,  vim  iniustam  non  ferri,  ius  cuivis  dici.  Ideo  Constantinopolin  Sul- 
tanus  refugium  totius  orbis  scribit:  quod  omnes  miseri  ibi  tutissime  lateant: 
quodque  omnibus,  tam  inflmis  quam  summis,  tam  Christianis  quam  infidel- 
ibus  iustitia  administretur."  Could  the  verdict  of  history  be  more  explicit 
than  in  the  remarkable  statements  here  quoted^ 


144  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Turks  in  Armenia  and  the  Balkans  prove  that  their  repu- 
tation for  the  most  frightful  deeds  of  savagery  is  estab- 
lished beyond  peradventure  ?  An  adequate  answer  to  this 
question  would  lead  us  too  far  afield,  for  the  Osmanlis, 
unlike  their  enemies,  have  few  champions  or  political 
knights-errant,  and  our  information,  therefore,  respecting 
the  atrocities  in  question  is  almost  entirely  one-sided.  To 
those,  however,  who  are  desirous  of  reading  the  Ottoman 
side  of  the  question  I  would  recommend  the  thoroughly 
documented  work  of  Pierre  Loti  entitled  Turquie  Agon- 
isante'^  A  careful  perusal  of  this  work  will  convince  any 
impartial  reader  that  in  this,  as  in  every  other  question, 
''the  unspeakable  Turk"  is  far  from  being  ''the  homicide 
of  all  human  kind"  he  is  so  frequently  pictured  to  be. 

I  would  not,  however,  have  it  inferred  from  the  foregoing 
pages  that  I  ignore  the  corruption  and  organized  bribery 
and  the  extent  to  which  the  government  is  made  to  subserve 
the  interests  of  those  who  govern  rather  than  those  who 
are  governed.  This  condition  has  existed  in  Turkey  from 
time  immemorial,  not  only  in  the  administration  of  govern- 
mental affairs  but  in  the  administration  of  justice  as  well. 
But  it  is,  unfortunately,  a  condition  that  exists  in  all  parts 
of  the  Orient  from  Constantinople  to  Peking.^" 

Nor  am  I  blind  to  the  incalculable  miseries  to  which  the 
peasantry  of  Anatolia  are  exposed  by  the  ravenous  tax- 
gatherers  who  rob  them  of  their  little  savings  and  keep 
many  of  them  in  constant  penury.    The  exactions  and  cruel- 

29  See  also  his  informing  brochure,  Les  Massacres  D^Armenie  (Paris,  1918). 

80  In  Persia,  according  to  the  eminent  traveler  and  Orientalist,  Arminius 
Vambery,  "Inferior  officials  cheat  the  people,  and  the  latter  again  avail  them- 
selves of  every  opportunity  to  cheat  the  officials;  Every  one  in  that  country 
lies,  cheats  and  swindles.  Nor  is  such  behavior  looked  upon  as  anything 
immoral  or  improper;  on  the  contrary,  the  man,  who  is  straightforward  and 
honest  in  his  dealings  ia  sure  to  be  spoken  of  contemptuously  as  a  fool  or 
madman."  The  Life  and  Adventures  of  Arminius  Vamiery,  written  hy  Him- 
self, p.  284   (London,  1914). 

How  the  Persians  have  degenerated  since  the  days  of  Cyrus  and  Darius! 
Then,  according  to  Herodotus,  their  sons  were  carefully  instructed  from 
their  fifth  to  their  twentieth  year  in  three  things  alone — to  ride,  to  draw 
the  bow,  and  to  speak  the  truth — "iraiSeiiovai  5e  rovs  iraiSas,  airb  irei>Ta€Teoi 
apidfievoi  iiixpt  elKoaaireos,  rpla  fiovva,  Inirevuv  /cot  roieveiv  (cat  dXTjOi^eaOii-"  I, 
136. 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA     145 

ties  of  these  soulless  agents  of  Turkish  misrule  are  almost 
incredible.  It  is  these  oppressive  measures  of  Turkish 
maladministration,  coupled  with  the  opening  of  the  Suez 
Canal,  which  have  done  much  to  close  the  overland  trade 
routes  to  which  Anatolia  owed  much  of  its  former  pros- 
perity. It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  reorganized  Ottoman  gov- 
ernment will  succeed  in  eliminating  the  crying  evils  here 
indicated,  but  they  are  of  so  long  standing  that  statesman- 
ship of  the  highest  order  will  be  required  to  deal  with  a 
situation  which  is  now  almost  desperate. 

In  marked  contrast  to  the  administrative  bribery  and  cor- 
ruption which  have  so  long  been  the  bane  of  Turkey,  as 
well  as  of  so  many  Eastern  countries,  is  the  remarkable 
spirit  of  tolerance  which  distinguishes  the  Ottoman  govern- 
ment. Thus  when  the  members  of  religious  orders — priests 
and  nuns — ^were  cruelly  driven  from  France  they  were  cor- 
dially welcomed  by  Turkey — the  reputed  home  of  intoler- 
ance and  fanaticism — ^where  they  were  guaranteed  full 
liberty  to  continue  their  apostolate  of  education  and 
charity.^^ 

The  opposition  raised  a  few  years  ago  by  an  uncon- 
trollable mob  to  the  passing  of  a  procession  in  honor  of  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  through  the  streets  of  London  is  still 
fresh  in  the  memory  of  all.  Contrast  this  with  the  attitude 
of  the  people  of  Constantinople  to  a  similar  ceremony.  The 
following  account  of  the  procession  is  translated  from  the 
Turkish  newspaper,  the  Stamhoul: 

On  Sunday  last  took  place  the  annual  procession — I 
underscore  the  word  annual — of  Corpus  Christi.  The  bril- 
liance of  the  fete  was  heightened  by  the  presence  of  Mon- 
signor  Nardi,  and  all  the  Catholic  colony  of  the  neighbor- 
si  It  is  interesting  to  note  here  that  in  the  Treaty  of  Amity  and  Commerce 
which  was  concluded  in  1535  between  France  and  the  Sublime  Porte  one  of 
the  articles  reads:  "It  is  forbidden  to  molest  the  French  in  matters  of  their 
religion  which  they  have  full  liberty  to  practice."  This  guarantee  of 
religious  freedom  included  the  Christians  of  all  other  nations — a  guarantee 
with  which  the  Ottoman  government  has  always  faithfully  complied.  Cf  Bxa- 
toire  de  I'Empxre  Ottoman,  Tom.  I,  p.  171,  173  (by  the  Vicomte  de  la 
Jonquifere,   Paris,    1914). 


146  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

hood  assembled  in  the  pretty  church  to  see  and  hear  its  first 
pastor.  Towards  five  o'clock  the  procession  emerged  amid 
a  vast  concourse  of  spectators  who  lined  the  way  on  either 
hand,  the  sacred  cortege  marching  to  the  music  of  liturgical 
chants  and  the  band  of  the  Salesian  Fathers.  In  front 
walked  the  school  children,  after  them  the  faithful,  then  the 
clergy  and  notables  of  Makri  Keui,  while  in  the  rear  Mon- 
signor  Nardi,  surrounded  by  the  clergy,  bore  the  Blessed 
Sacrament.  Perfect  order  was  maintained  by  the  police 
with  a  degree  of  tact  which  did  honor  to  the  force.  And 
for  the  space  of  an  hour  the  procession  traversed  the  gayly 
decorated  streets  of  the  quarter,  which  had  been  newly 
graveled  for  the  occasion  by  the  orders  of  the  worthy  and 
ever-courteous  president  of  the  municipality,  Sherif  Ef- 
fendi.  Such  ceremonies  leave  a  pleasant  impression  in  a 
country  like  Turkey  where  everyone  is  free  to  practice  his 
religion  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  conscience." 

■■A^  V.\ 

The  same  freedom  of  worship,  notwithstanding  reports 
to  the  contrary,  is  enjoyed  by  the  Armenians.  They  are, 
besides,  left  perfectly  free  to  have  their  own  schools  and 
to  retain  their  own  language.  They  have  not  had  such 
liberty  in  Eussia.  "For  six  hundred  years  the  Armenians 
were  contented  under  the  dominion  of  the  Turks, ' '  declared 
one  of  their  bishops  a  few  years  ago,  and  they  would,  doubt- 
less, be  still  living  in  peace  with  their  old  masters  were  it 
not  for  the  machination  of  Russian  propagandists  and 
Armenian  revolutionists.  The  proof  of  this  is  that  **the 
highroad  from  Trebizond  to  Erzeroum  ...  is  dotted  with 
Christian  monasteries  and  churches  unmolested  for  cen- 
turies.*'" 

Napoleon  I  was  wont  to  say  that  a  lie,  given  twenty-four 
hours'  start,  becomes  immortal.  But,  when  lies  about  the 
Turks  have  been  repeated  for  generations  in  spite  of  the 

82  Quoted  from  Turkey  and  the  Ottomans,  p.  142,  et.  seq.  (by  Lucy  M. 
Garnett,  New  York,  1911). 

83  C/.  Turkish  Memories,  p.  128,  et  passim  (by  Sidney  Whitman).  See 
Through  Armenia  on  Horseback,  Chap.  VIII  (by  G.  H.  Hepworth,  New  York, 
1918),  and  In  the  Palaces  of  the  Sultan,  pp.  426,  427  (by  Anna  Bowman 
Dodd). 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA     147 

oflBcial  denials  of  the  Ottoman  government  and  in  spite  of 
the  contradictions  of  men  who  have  long  lived  among  these 
much  misunderstood  and  greatly  misrepresented  people, 
what  hope,  one  may  ask,  can  there  be  for  the  final  triumph 
of  truth?  What  can  be  done  to  counteract  shameless  calum- 
nies and  official  dementis  when  the  greater  part  of  the 
press  is  either  muzzled  or  avowedly  hostile  and  when  public 
opinion  has  been  so  utterly  poisoned  by  long  and  constant 
reiteration  of  all  kinds  of  vilification  and  slander  that  the 
unfortunate  victims  are  everywhere  prejudiced  and  denied 
the  right  of  a  hearing  which  the  law — not  to  speak  of  Chris- 
tian charity — of  all  civilized  nations  accords  to  even  the 
worst  of  criminals  ? 

''Professional  scribblers,"  writes  Pierre  Loti,  '*who 
have  never  set  foot  in  Turkey,  expectorate  'great  historical 
romances'  on  the  'Tigers  of  the  Bosphorus'  and  the  'Mon- 
sters of  StambouL'  "  ^*  "And  they  go  so  far  even  as  to  con- 
found the  true  Turks  with  that  aggregation  of  sharpers 
from  all  the  Balkan  and  Levantine  races  who  put  on  a  fez 
in  order  to  live  among  the  Anatolians  as  gnawing  para- 
sites, parasites  to  the  bone,  whose  depredations  and  usury, 
ruining  entire  villages,  would  almost  excuse  the  worst 
vengeance  of  the  rude  and  upright  laborers  of  Anatolia 
who  finally  revolted. ' '  ^' 

Sidney  Whitman,  the  distinguished  English  author  who 
knows  Turkey  so  well,  is  at  one  with  the  illustrious  Acade- 
mician when  he  writes : 

In  the  course  of  my  many  visits  to  Constantinople  I  have 
repeatedly  been  made  acquainted  with  instances  of  ques- 
tionable newspaper  correspondents  who  came  to  the  Palace 
with  the  scarcely  veiled  intimation  that  it  was  to  be  a  case 
of  pay  or  slander.  During  the  Armenian  disturbances  in 
1896  a  French  female  journalist  went  up  to  the  Palace  and 
openly  declared  that  she  intended  to  be  paid  or  write  up 
*' atrocities."^® 


"  Op.  cit.,  p.  108. 
86  Ibid.,  p.  116. 
««  Op.  cit.,  p.  231. 


148  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON  . 

But,  notwithstanding  the  lurid  tales  that  have  so  long 
been  circulated  about  the  Osmanlis,  they  have,  neverthe- 
less, loyal  friends  where  one  would  least  expect  to  find 
them.  I  have  adduced  in  their  favor  the  testimony  of  those 
who  from  long  association  among  them  have  learned  to 
know  them  and  admire  them  for  their  splendid  human  quali- 
ties. Among  these  witnesses  to  the  virtues  of  the  Osmanlis 
are  French,  English,  and  American  men  whose  competence 
is  as  incontrovertible  as  their  authority  is  unimpeachable. 
It  were  easy  to  add  to  the  number  and  among  them  we 
should  find  French,  Italian,  and  German  priests  and  bish- 
ops. Sisters  of  Charity  and  religieuses  of  the  various  teach- 
ing orders  who  have  spent  long  years  among  the  Osmanlis 
in  all  parts  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  and  their  testimony 
would  confirm  that  already  introduced. 

It  may,  however,  be  urged  that  the  testimony  in  question 
is  that  of  friends  and  sympathizers.  It  affords  me,  there- 
fore, special  pleasure  to  reproduce  here  the  generous  appre- 
ciation of  "The  Terrible  Turk'*  which  has  recently  ap- 
peared in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  "  from  the  pen  of  a  Serbian 
gentleman  who  has  had  an  opportunity  of  knowing  him  in 
war  as  well  as  in  peace.  It  fully  corroborates  all  that  has 
been  stated  in  the  preceding  pages  and  is  as  great  an 
evidence  of  the  writer 's  nobility  of  soul,  as  it  is  a  splendid 
tribute  to  the  character  of  a  whilom  foe : 

We  Serbians  are  fighting  against  the  Turks  with  all  our 
might,  but  we  do  not  wish  to  be  unjust  to  them.  I  am  per- 
fectly certain  that  every  Serbian  soldier,  marching  now 
victoriously  through  Macedonia  and  Albania,  and  every 
wounded  Serbian  lying  somewhere  in  a  hospital,  and  every 
Serbian  mother,  sister,  wife,  sweetheart,  who  has  lost  her 
son,  or  her  brother,  or  her  husband,  or  her  lover,  on  one 
of  the  many  bloody  battlefields,  would  applaud  my  effort 
to  do  justice  to  our  enemy.  And,  therefore,  I  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  say  a  good  word  for  the  Turk.  I  do  homage  not  to 
the  Turk,  but  to  truth. 

37  November  29,  1912. 


HOME  LIFE  OF  THE  OSMANLIS  IN  ANATOLIA     149 

An  average  Turk— or  shall  I  perhaps  call  him  a  normal 
Turk? — is  an  excellent  man.  He  believes  in  God,  and  prays 
to  God  more  earnestly  and  more  intensely  than  an  average 
or  normal  Christian  does.  And  he  persistently  and  hon- 
estly tries  to  conform  his  every-day  life  to  the  command- 
ments of  his  great  Prophet.  He  is  charitable,  honest,  trust- 
worthy; he  is  modest,  yet  dignified;  he  is  proud,  but  not 
vain;  he  is  brave,  but  not  boastful ;  he  is  sober,  clean,  polite ; 
he  is  generally  poor,  but  always  hospitable ;  and  he  is  patri- 
otic, ready  to  starve  and  suffer  and  die,  without  a  murmur, 
for  his  faith  and  the  honor  of  his  country.  But  this  excel- 
lent, virtuous,  and  God-fearing  brave  man  is  heavy,  slow 
and  somewhat  stupid,  and  in  the  electrical  and  aeroplanic 
twentieth  century  cannot  stand  against  scientific  organiza- 
tions and  quick-firing  guns  of  the  clever,  sharp-witted 
Greeks,  Serbians,  and  Bulgars. 

The  Turk  was  master  of  the  Balkan  nations  for  nearly 
five  centuries.  During  all  those  centuries  he  consistently 
refrained  from  interfering  with  our  national  churches  and 
with  our  village  municipal  life.  From  the  liberty  which  the 
Turk  left  to  our  Church  and  our  municipal  life  in  the  coun- 
try, our  political  liberty  was  re-born.  But,  notwithstanding 
his  religious  tolerance  and  his  non-interference  with  our 
village  life,  we  hated  him  as  long  as,  and  just  because  he 
was  our  master.  But  now,  when  our  victories  have  deprived 
him  of  his  position  as  master  of  our  countries,  we  will  be 
pleased  to  have  him  for  our  friend,  because — although  he  is 
not  exactly  a  ''jolly" — ^he  is  certainly  a  good  fellow. 

How  different  is  this  portrait  of  "The  Unspeakable 
Turk,"  painted  by  one  who  knew  him  by  life-long  associa- 
tion from  that  of  the  atrabilious  author  of  Sartor  Resartus, 
whose  delineation  of  him  was  based  on  fancy  and  prejudice, 
if  not  on  pathetic  ignorance ! 

The  great  trouble  in  Asia  Minor  to-day  is  an  economic 
one.  This  is  the  verdict  of  those  who  are  most  competent  to 
judge — of  those  who  have  lived  among  the  Osmanlis  for 
years  and  have  only  words  of  praise  for  their  many  natural 
virtues  and  their  abounding  goodness  of  heart.    It  is  the 


150  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

verdict  of  men  and  women  to  whom  the  brotherhood  of  man 
and  the  fatherhood  of  God  are  not  empty  words,  of  those 
who  believe  that  the  precepts  of  Christian  charity  are  as 
obligatory  for  nations  as  for  individuals,  and  that  it  be- 
hooves the  Great  Powers  to  assist  in  its  economic  stress 
at  least  this  part  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  and  to  help  it  to 
develop  its  marvelous  natural  resources.  Were  they  to  do 
this,  Anatolia  would  again  blossom  as  the  rose  and  flourish 
once  more  as  it  did  in  the  heyday  of  Greek  and  Roman 
splendor.  But  such  altruism  is  quite  alien  to  the  self- 
seeking  policy  of  the  dominant  nations  of  Europe.  Acting 
on  the  theory  that  might  makes  right  they  coolly  proceed 
to  the  dismemberment  of  the  empire  and  endeavor  to  jus- 
tify it  by  alleging,  in  French  diplomatic  phrase,  the  require- 
ments of  the  action  civilisatrice  of  Western  as  against  East- 
ern civilization  while  every  one  who  thinks  knows  that  the 
real  reason  is  the  lust  of  conquest. 

Although  I  do  not  hold  a  brief  for  the  Osmanlis,  I  would 
make  a  plea  for  more  tolerance  for  a  people  who  have  so 
long  exhibited  such  tolerance  toward  others.  Having  my- 
self been  among  the  number  of  those  who  unconsciously 
did  grave  injustice  to  them  before  I  came  to  know  them  as 
they  are,  I  feel  that  I  am  fully  warranted  in  urging  a 
change  of  attitude  towards  them.  Equitable  statesmanship, 
as  well  as  Christian  charity,  demands  such  a  change.  We 
can  never  hope  to  remove  the  barrier  between  the  East  and 
the  West,  between  Islam  and  Christianity,  so  long  as  the 
age-long  misunderstandings  and  misrepresentations  above 
referred  to  continue  to  separate  peoples  who  should  live 
in  union  and  harmony. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  BAGDAD  RAILWAY 

In  its  political  and  military,  not  to  speak  of  its  commercial,  con- 
sequences, the  securing  by  Germany  of  the  Bagdad  Railway  is  per- 
haps the  most  important  event  which  has  occurred  in  the  Old 
World  since  the  Franco-Prussian  War.^ 

Andr6  Ch^radame. 

At  Konia,  anciently  Iconium,  we  reached  the  junction  of 
the  Anatolia  and  the  Bagdad  Railways.  From  an  economic 
and  military  standpoint,  both  roads  are  of  supreme  impor- 
tance to  the  Ottoman  Empire.  They  supply  commerce  with 
long  needed  means  of  communication  between  the  interior 
and  the  seaboard,  and  enable  the  Sultan  to  conduct  the 
administration  of  his  extensive  territory  with  far  more 
efficiency  and  despatch  than  was  before  possible.  Politi- 
cally, however,  the  Bagdad  Railway  is  incomparably  still 
more  important.  No  great  railroad  has  ever  attracted  more 
attention;  none  has  ever  owed  so  much  to  its  name;  none 
has  ever  so  fired  the  imagination  of  Germans  and  Otto- 
mans; and  none  has  ever  so  exhausted  the  resources  of 
diplomacy  or  provoked  greater  struggles  for  its  control. 
Historically  both  roads  have  a  special  interest  to  the  stu- 
dent and  the  historian  not  only  on  account  of  the  classic 
lands  through  which  they  pass  but  also  on  account  of  the 
long  and  strenuous  efforts  which  several  rival  nations  made 
to  obtain  from  the  Sublime  Porte  the  authorization  to  build 
and  operate  the  great  road  which  was  to  unite  the  West 
and  the  East. 

So  greatly  has  the  Bagdad  Railway  modified  the  Near 
Eastern  Question,  so  completely  has  it  changed  the  data 
and  the  consequent  solution  of  the  problem,  and  so  perfectly 

iLe  Chemin  de  Fer  de  Bagdad,  p.  226  (Paris,  1915). 

151 


152  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

does  its  history  dovetail  into  the  narrative  of  our  journey, 
that  a  brief  account  of  the  origin  and  struggling  beginnings 
of  the  road  is  necessary  to  a  clear  conception  of  many  things 
that  shall  be  said  in  subsequent  chapters. 

Many  and  diverse,  as  the  ambitions  of  those  who  gave 
them  birth,  have  been  the  projects  to  unite  by  rail  the 
superb  capital  on  the  Bosphorus  with  the  mysterious  city 
of  Harun-al-Rashid  on  the  distant  Tigris. 
.  Two-thirds  of  a  century  ago  there  were  few  projects 
which  were  proposed  with  more  insistence  to  the  British 
Cabinet  and  to  the  House  of  Commons  as  well  as  to  English 
capitalists  than  that  which  had  for  its  object  the  construc- 
tion of  a  railway  which,  starting  from  a  point  on  the  Medi- 
terranean, should  cross  Mesopotamia  in  the  direction  of 
India. 

The  original  plan  called  for  an  overland  route  which 
would  connect  the  Mediterranean  with  the  Persian  Gulf. 
It  was  based  on  an  elaborate  survey  of  the  Euphrates  val- 
ley, which  had  been  made  by  an  English  officer.  Colonel 
Chesney,  in  1835-1837.  The  primary  object  was  to  shorten 
the  journey  from  England  to  India,  which  was  then  made 
across  the  Isthmus  of  Suez,  or  round  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope. 

The  preliminary  survey  of  this  contemplated  line  was 
made  by  order  of  the  British  Government  which  voted 
£20,000  for  expenses.  Materials  for  two  armed  steamers 
were,  under  the  direction  of  Colonel  Chesney,  transported 
with  almost  insuperable  difficulties  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Orontes  to  the  Euphrates.  This  gallant  officer  had  under 
his  command  a  well-equipped  staff  of  engineers  and  men 
of  science,  and  the  work  which  the  expedition  set  out  to 
execute  was  performed,  as  the  official  reports  show,  in  the 
most  thorough  manner.  More  than  two  years  were  devoted 
to  the  task  of  exploring  the  Euphrates,  the  Tigris,  and  the 
region  through  which  they  flowed,  and  the  enthusiastic 
commander  felt  sure  his  labors  were  to  issue  **in  the  con- 


THE  BAGDAD  RAILWAY  153 

solidation  and  perfection  of  the  overland  communications 
between  Great  Britain  and  India. ' '  ^ 

But  how  quickly  and  completely  his  illusions  were  dis- 
pelled ! 

When  I  returned  from  the  East  in  1837  [he  wrote  long 
after]  it  was  with  the  full  belief  that  a  question  of  such 
vast  importance  to  Great  Britain — nationally,  politically 
and  commercially — ^would  be  at  once  taken  up  warmly  by 
the  Government  and  the  public.  The  way  had  been  opened 
— difficulties  which  at  one  time  had  looked  formidable  had 
been  overcome;  the  Arabs  and  the  Turkish  Government 
were  favorable  to  the  projected  line  to  India.  But  thirty- 
one  years  have  since  passed,  and  nothing  has  been  done,^ 

In  1851  a  company  was  organized  in  England  for  realiz- 
ing Colonel  Chesney's  plan  for  connecting  the  Mediter- 
ranean with  the  Persian  Gulf.  A  firman  was  obtained  from 
the  Porte  and  everything  was  ready  for  beginning  work — 
except  cash.  As  the  enterprise  was  not  supported  by  the 
government,  English  capitalists  considered  participation 
in  it  too  hazardous  to  justify  investment.  The  company's 
concession  lapsed  for  lack  of  the  necessary  funds. 

The  question  was  again  taken  up  in  1872  and  referred  to 
a  Parliamentary  commission.  But,  although  Colonel  Ches- 
ney's plan  of  building  a  road  along  the  Euphrates  was 
favorably  received,  it  was  again  abandoned — this  time  in 
favor  of  the  Suez  Canal,  a  large  interest  in  which  had  been 
purchased  for  England  by  her  astute  premier,  Disraeli, 
who  was  quick  to  perceive  the  paramount  value  of  this 
passageway  between  England  and  her  possessions  in  the 
Orient.* 

During  many  years  thereafter  this  new  route  between 

2  Narrative  of  the  Euphrates  Expedition  carried  on  by  Order  of  the  British 
Government  during  the  years  18S5,  18S6  amd  18S7,  p.  360  (London,  1868). 

8  Ibid.,  p.  viii. 

*Lord  Palmerston,  it  is  interesting  to  observe  in  this  connection,  did  not 
hesitate  to  declare  in  Parliament  that  the  construction  of  the  Suez  Canal,  as 
planned  by  De  Lesseps,  was  physically  impracticable  and  that  the  project  was 
but  a  trap  set  for  gullible  capitalists. 


154  FEOM  BEELIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Asia  and  Europe  so  absorbed  public  attention  that  the 
Euphrates  Eailway  was  almost  forgotten.  But  towards  the 
end  of  the  century  numerous  projects  for  constructing  the 
road  were  taken  up  by  several  groups  of  promoters  and 
financiers  of  different  nationalities. 

Among  these  was  the  project  of  an  Italian,  Sig.  A.  Toni- 
etti,  who,  acting  in  behalf  of  a  company  of  Italian  and 
English  financiers,  sought  a  concession  for  the  construction 
of  a  line  which  should  start  from  Alexandretta  on  the  Medi- 
terranean and  which,  following  the  Euphrates  to  Bagdad 
and  Basra,  should  terminate  at  a  point  on  the  Persian  Gulf. 
He  also  sought  a  concession  for  building  a  number  of 
branch  lines,  one  of  which  was  to  extend  to  Khanikin  on  the 
Persian  frontier.  In  addition  to  this  he  asked  for  authori- 
zation to  cultivate  the  unoccupied  government  lands  along 
the  course  of  the  railroad  during  the  term  of  the  conces- 
sion. In  return  for  this  authorization  he  agreed  to  estab- 
lish an  irrigation  system  which  should  restore  the  Euphra- 
tes valley  to  its  pristine  fertility. 

There  was  also  a  French  group  of  financiers  who,  headed 
by  M.  Cottard,  a  distinguished  railroad  engineer  in  Turkey, 
endeavored  by  all  means  in  their  power  to  secure  a  conces- 
sion for  building  a  railway  which  was  to  be  a  prolongation 
of  the  Anatolian  line  to  Bagdad  and  Basra  and  to  follow 
essentially  the  same  course  along  the  Euphrates  as  the 
projected  road  of  Sig.  Tonietti. 

In  addition  to  the  two  projects  just  mentioned  was  that 
of  the  Eussian  Count 'Kapist,  who  proposed  to  build  a  line 
which  should  start  from  Tripoli,  in  Syria,  and,  passing 
Bagdad,  should  terminate  at  Koweit  on  the  Persian  Gulf. 
Count  Kapist  and  his  associates  pretended  that  they  were 
assured  of  the  eventual  cooperation  not  only  of  English 
capitalists  but  also  of  the  British  Government." 

The  applicants  for  these  divers  concessions  were,  how- 
ever, all  doomed  to  disappointment.  Never  before  had  so 
many,  so  antagonistic,  and  so  powerful  interests  made  so 

6  "Ismaili  to  Koweit  Ry.,"  National  Review,  p.  464,  May,  1902. 


THE  BAGDAD  RAILWAY  155 

long  and  so  strenuous  efforts  to  secure  the  coveted  privilege 
of  building  a  railroad  in  foreign  territory.  Never  were 
diplomats  more  active  in  Constantinople,  never  was  intrigue 
more  complicated,  and  never  was  greater  pressure  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  Sublime  Porte  by  the  rival  nations  of 
Europe.  France  wished  to  safeguard  her  interests  in  the 
Levant  and  extend  her  sphere  of  influence  in  the  Near  East. 
Eussia  desired  to  tighten  her  hold  on  Transcaucasia  and  to 
prepare  for  the  eventual  dismemberment  of  the  Turkish 
Empire  of  which  she  fondly  hoped  to  secure  the  lion's  share. 
England,  although  she  had  control  of  the  Suez  Canal,  saw 
in  the  Bagdad  Railway  a  menace  to  her  Indian  possessions 
and  determined  to  nullify  the  danger  before  it  was  too  late. 

France  had  been  on  the  friendliest  terms  with  the  Otto- 
man Government  since  the  time  of  Francis  I  and  her  finan- 
ciers naturally  felt  that  the  much  coveted  concession  should 
be  awarded  to  them  as  citizens  of  the  most  favored  nation. 
English  capitalists  put  forward  claims  which  they  regarded 
as  deserving  greater  consideration  than  those  of  their 
competitors. 

But  French  and  English  as  well  as  Italian  and  Russian 
claims  were  ignored,  their  projects  for  connecting  the 
Mediterranean  with  the  Persian  Gulf  were  rejected  and  the 
long  and  eagerly  sought  concession  was  awarded  to  a  group 
of  German  capitalists,  alias  the  Deutsche  Bank,  alias,  their 
opponents  contend,  the  German  Government. 

What  the  Germans  call  Drang  nach  Osten — Trend  towards 
the  East — dates  from  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great.  It 
drove  the  legions  of  the  Cassars  to  the  Euphrates  and  the 
Tigris  and  impelled  the  hosts  of  the  Crusaders  to  seek  glory 
on  the  desert  wastes  of  Syria  and  Mesopotamia.  It  urged 
Napoleon  to  undertake  his  famous  campaign  in  Egypt  and 
was  at  the  bottom  of  his  alliance  with  the  Czar  Alexander  I 
— an  alliance  that  was  to  carry  the  combined  armies  of 
France  and  Russia  to  the  heart  of  India. 

As  to  the  Germans,  they  have  never  ceased  **to  dream  of 
the  Morgenland  since  the  epic  of  Barbarossa's  crusade 


156  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

and  the  legendary  disappearance  of  that  great  figure  of 
Teutonic  battle  and  romance  in  the  Cilician  stream. ' '  When 
von  Moltke,  1835-1839,  was  assisting  the  Sultan  Mahmud  II 
to  reorganize  the  Ottoman  army  on  the  German  plan  he  was 
greatly  impressed  with  the  possibilities  offered  by  Asia 
Minor  as  a  field  for  German  commerce  and  enterprise. 
Others  of  his  countrymen  thought  it  would  be  good  policy 
to  divert  the  current  of  German  emigration  from  America  to 
Asia  Minor,  And,  although  the  Porte  had  always  been 
opposed  to  all  schemes  of  German  colonization  in  Turkey, 
there  was  reason  to  believe  that  the  Ottoman  Government, 
after  the  completion  of  the  Bagdad  Railway,  would  consent 
to  German  colonists  settling  in  certain  places  in  Anatolia 
and  Mesopotamia.  For,  several  decades  before  the  Ger- 
mans had  secured  the  concession  to  build  the  Bagdad  Rail- 
road, the  friendliest  relations  had  existed  between  Constan- 
tinople and  Berlin.  This  was  particularly  true  after  the 
defeat  of  France  in  1870,  when  Germany  was  reorganized 
as  the  first  military  power  in  the  world.  For  thenceforward 
Turkey  not  only  maintained  a  goodly  number  of  military 
students  in  Germany,  but  also  had  many  German  officers  in 
her  army,  among  whom  was  the  distinguished  Field  Marshal 
Goltz  Pasha. 

It  was,  however,  more  than  a  half  century  before  von 
Moltke 's  idea  of  developing  Anatolia  and  Mesopotamia  was 
given  practical  consideration.  It  was  then  taken  up  by  Dr. 
George  von  Siemens,  the  distinguished  president  of  the 
Deutsche  Bank,  who,  like  so  many  of  his  countrymen,  had 
come  under  the  spell  of  Germany's  Weltpolitik  and,  like 
them,  had  been  caught  in  the  current  of  the  Drang  nach 
Osten. 

Dr.  von  Siemens  was  not  only  one  of  the  ablest  of  the 
group  of  eminent  men  whom  the  Kaiser  had  gathered  about 
him,  but  was  also  a  great  favorite  of  the  German  War  Lord. 
He  not  only  shared  von  Moltke 's  views  regarding  the 
development  of  Asia  Minor  and  Mesopotamia,  but,  with 
rare  clearness  of  vision,  saw  that  this  development  could  be 


THE  BAGDAD  RAILWAY  157 

achieved  only  by  the  construction  of  a  railway  through  the 
broad  wastes  which  lay  between  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Per- 
sian Gulf.  To  reclaim  for  civilization  the  long-neglected 
valleys  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris  and  to  restore  to 
their  ancient  splendor  the  broad  and  fertile  plains  of 
Anatolia  and  Mesopotamia — so  long  the  favored  home  of 
humanity — ^became  his  dominant  ambition,  and  to  the 
achievement  of  his  cherished  project  he  directed  for  years, 
with  marvelous  address  and  persistency,  his  indomitable 
energy  and  savoir  faire.  Slowly  but  surely  his  dream  began 
to  be  realized. 

Before  the  Anatolian  Railway  was  completed  the  Turkish 
Army  was  eating  bread  made  from  Russian  flour ;  now  it  is 
using  grain  grown  in  the  fertile  acres  of  Asia  Minor.  And 
before  the  advent  of  the  railroad  the  communications  be- 
tween the  interior  of  Asia  Minor  and  the  seaboard  were  so 
wretched  that  the  freight  on  domestic  grain  was  greater 
than  on  that  imported  from  Russia  or  the  United  States. 
The  result  was  that  the  Anatolian  peasants  then  grew  only 
enough  wheat  for  their  own  needs.  Before  the  advent  of 
the  railroad  not  a  single  ton  of  grain  from  the  region  trav- 
ersed by  the  Anatolian  Railroad  reached  the  seacoast  for 
export.  After  the  road  was  completed  the  export  of  wheat 
and  other  cereals  became,  in  a  very  short  time,  an  important 
item  of  commerce.  The  peasantry  received  *'for  their  har- 
vests from  twice  to  four  times  the  prices  formerly  paid 
and  the  railways  brought  revenue  to  the  (Ottoman) 
treasury."" 

The  cost  of  the  railway  was  great,  indeed,  but  greater 
far  was  its  value  to  Turkey,  for  it  was  not  only  the  best 
but  also  the  only  practical  means  of  **  bringing  the  dis- 
jointed members  of  that  large  empire  within  reach  of 
control,"  and  of  ** bringing  security  and  cultivation,  order 
and  civilization,  to  a  country  that  once  had  been  the  most 
fertile  on  earth. '  *  ^ 

8  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  1084,  June,  1909. 
7  Ibid  ,  p.  108.5. 


158  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

That  Germany  should  have  received  the  concession  for 
building  the  Bagdad  Railway  in  the  face  of  such  strong 
competitors  as  Russia,  France,  and  England  was  a  great 
surprise  to  those  who  were  not  familiar  with  the  relations 
among  the  Great  Powers  and  who  were  not  well  informed 
respecting  the  diplomatic  game  as  it  was  then  played  in 
Constantinople.  To  those,  however,  who  had  an  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  strained  relations  which  existed  between 
the  Porte  and  certain  of  the  western  nations  and  who  knew 
how  suspicious  Abdul-Hamid  II  was  of  all  schemes  affecting 
Turkey,  which  were  engineered  in  Russia  or  Great  Britain, 
or  in  behalf  of  Russian  or  British  interests,  the  outcome  of 
the  long  diplomatic  game  at  the  Porte  was  looked  upon  as  a 
foregone  conclusion. 

A  brilliant  French  publicist  attributes  the  success  of  the 
Germans  in  securing  the  concession  for  the  Bagdad  Rail- 
way to  the  fact  that  the  era  of  great  ambassadors  from 
France  and  England  at  the  Sublime  Porte  was  closed  at  the 
period  in  question — that  in  the  year  immediately  preceding 
''the  publication  of  the  irade  of  the  concession  in  1899," 
there  was  then  "an  utter  bankruptcy  of  great  men"  at 
Constantinople  from  these  two  countries.* 

Opposed  to  the  English,  French,  and  Russian  Ambassa- 
dors, and  almost  isolated  from  his  colleagues,  was  the  alert 
and  sagacious  Baron  Marschall  von  Bieberstein,  the  noted 
ambassador  from  Germany  who,  according  to  an  anonymous 
writer  in  the  National  Review,  "was  the  -most  influential 
of  the  ambassadors  at  Yildiz,  and,  in  accordance  with  the 
thoroughly  sensible  and  practical  cast  of  German  ideas  as 
to  the  functions  of  diplomacy,  had  used  his  position  more 
actively  and  successfully  than  any  minister  had  done  before 
to  promote  the  business  interest  of  his  nationals  in 
Turkey. "« 

Not  to  speak  of  the  failure  of  France  and  Russia  to 
secure  the  concession  for  building  the  Bagdad  Railway,  it 

8  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  966  et  seq.,  May,  1914. 
ojune,  1901,  p.  629. 


THE  BAGDAD  RAILWAY  159 

may  here  be  declared  that  England's  hopes  of  securing 
it  were  doomed  from  the  very  beginning.  Her  control  of 
the  Suez  Canal  and  her  occupation  of  Egypt,  which  was  the 
territory  of  a  Turkish  vassal,  not  to  speak  of  Gladstone's 
denunciation  of  the  Sultan  as  the  ** Great  Assassin,'*  all 
predisposed  Abdul-Hamid  in  favor  of  Germany  and  as 
strongly  predisposed  him  against  Great  Britain. 

A  writer  in  the  National  Review,  referring  to  this  sub- 
ject, declares: 

For  many  years  the  immobile  Turk  had  never  been  so 
likely  to  go  out  of  his  way  for  any  purpose  in  the  world 
as  when  an  opportunity  to  do  the  English  Government  a 
discourtesy  or  English  influence  a  disservice;  and  it  may 
almost  be  said  that  even  a  bribe  worthy  of  the  fabulous 
wealth  of  the  detested  island  would  not  have  induced  Abdul- 
Hamid  to  give  to  an  Englishman  what  he  could  give  to  any 
one  else.^** 

When  it  was  officially  announced  that  the  concession  for 
the  building  of  the  Bagdad  Railway  had  been  granted  to  a 
German  syndicate,  there  was  great  jubilation  from  the 
Rhine  to  the  Vistula  over  what  was  regarded  as  a  great 
victory  for  Teutonic  diplomacy  and  enterprise.  The  en- 
thusiastic sons  of  the  Fatherland  fancied  that  they  already 
saw  the  well-equipped  trains  of  the  Bagdad  Railway  "run- 
ning in  the  track  of  Alexander"  from  the  Dardanelles  to 
the  embouchure  of  the  Shatt-el-Arab,  and  exulted  in  the 
thought  that  "where  the  Mermnadae,  the  AchaBmenidae,  and 
the  Greek,  Roman,  Arabic,  and  Turkish  conquerors  failed, 
there  Germany  had  a  good  prospect  of  success."  " 

In  Turkey  the  diplomatic  victory  of  the  Germans  meant 
a  great  exaltation  of  Teutonic  prestige  and  a  corresponding 
diminution  of  the  credit  and  influence  of  the  defeated 
Powers. 

In  France,  the  predominant  position  of  power  and  influ- 

10  June,  1901,  p.  629. 

11  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  961,  May,  1914. 


160  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

ence  acquired  by  Germany  was  interpreted  as  a  complete 
subversion  of  the  Eastern  Question  and  as  an  event  which 
made  the  solution  of  this  long-standing  question  corre- 
spondingly difficult — '*ce  qui  boulverse  completment  les 
donnees  du  prohleme  et  par  consequent  sa  solution  pos- 
sible:'^'' 

France  [writes  M.  Auble]  had  long  been  the  disinterested 
protector  of  a  nation  whose  moral  and  material  elevation 
she  had  constantly  sought  and  had  spent  in  all  branches  of 
human  activity  of  that  unfortunate  country  many  milliards 
of  francs.  What  she  loved  to  regard  as  a  second  France, 
she  saw  with  sorrow  was  about  to  escape  her  and  come 
under  the  influence  of  a  hated  rival." 

Russia 's  attitude  toward  the  Bagdad  Railway  was  no  less 
hostile.  It  had,  for  obvious  reasons,  been  her  policy  since 
the  time  of  Peter  the  Great  to  weaken  and  eventually  dis- 
member the  Ottoman  Empire.  Her  objection  to  the  road 
was  that  it  contributed  immeasurably  to  the  financial,  politi- 
cal, and  strategical  strength  of  Turkey,  and  that  this  would 
completely  foil  all  her  well-laid  plans  for  her  ultimate  par- 
tition. She  also  regarded  the  road  as  a  menace  to  Trans- 
caucasia, but,  more  than  this,  she  feared  that  it  would,  in 
the  possession  of  Germany,  halt  her  further  advance  into 
Western  Asia  and  prove,  mayhap,  a  stepping-stone  to 
Germany's  annexation  of  Asia  Minor. 

But  the  resentment  of  Great  Britain  was  far  greater  than 
that  of  either  France  or  Russia.  She  had  more  at  stake  and 
greater  reasons  for  serious  apprehension  for  the  future. 
So  long  as  she  controlled  the  Suez  Canal  and  there  was  no 
competing  line  towards  India  she  felt  secure.  But  when,  in 
1888,  Baron  Hirsch's  Railroad  through  the  Balkan  Penin- 

12  Cheradame,  op.  cit.,  p.  V. 

13  "Le  tres  distingue  M.  Eugene  Gallos  de  la  Societe  de  Geographic  de  Paris 
qui,  avec  M.  Le  General  Dolot,  ont  parconru  en  1914  la  Syrie  et  la  Mesopotamie 
peuvent  aflfirmer  qu  11  y  avait  la-bas  une  seconde  France,  aimant  inlassable- 
ment  celle  qui  est  en  train  d'  ecrire  sa  plus  belle  page  dans  I'histoire  des, 
nations."  Bagdad,  Son  Chemin  de  Fer,  Son  Importance,  Son  Avenir,  p.  25 
(by  fimile  Aubl6,  Paris,  1917). 


THE  BAGDAD  RAILWAY  161 

sula  was  completed  to  the  Bosphorus  and  connected  Con- 
stantinople with  Western  Europe,  and  steps  were  taken  to 
extend  this  line  through  Anatolia  and  Mesopotamia  to  the 
Persian  Gulf,  alarm,  bordering  on  dismay,  took  possession 
of  her  publicists  and  statesmen. 

The  political  and  military  importance  of  an  overland 
railway  from  the  Bosphorus  to  the  Persian  Gulf  which 
could  not  be  reached  by  a  hostile  fleet  could  not  be  over- 
estimated. 

Indeed  [as  a  noted  English  authority  wrote  in  1917] 
so  long  as  the  forts  of  the  Dardanelles  and  the  Bosphorus 
remain  intact  the  Sultan  and  his  allies  enjoy  the  advantages 
of  a  naval  power  in  a  limited  area — the  Bosphorus,  the  Sea 
of  Marmora  and  the  Dardanelles — ^without  the  possession 
of  a  fleet.  This  enables  the  Sultan  and  his  Germanic  allies 
rapidly  to  convey  troops  or  foodstuffs  from  Europe  to 
Asia  Minor,  Syria  and  Mesopotamia  and  vice  versa,  in  the 
very  face  of  the  Allied  Fleets,  which  are  powerless  to  inter- 
fere in  areas  protected  by  defences  which  had  proved,  as 
one  had  to  expect  they  would  prove,  impregnable.^* 

Another  English  writer  saw  in  German  control  of  the 
Bagdad  Railway  the  doom  of  English  trade  and  French 
enterprise  in  the  Near  East. 

Is  the  same  fate  [he  asks]  to  be  meted  out  to  the  French 
railways  in  Syria  as  that  which  has  overtaken  the  non- 
German  railways  in  Asia  Minor  ?  Are  they  to  be  absorbed 
into  the  Bagdad  Railway,  or  be  cut  off  from  any  prospects 
of  development?  On  the  further  side  of  the  area,  are  the 
British  communications  up  the  Tigris  to  be  starved  into 
submission,  and  is  the  trade  of  Manchester  and  our  great 
industrial  centers  to  be  placed  at  the  mercy  of  variable 
by-laws  in  the  statutes  of  railway  companies  owned  or 
largely  controlled  by  Germany?  In  the  present  temper  of 
British  diplomacy,  a  German  victory  of  this  kind  is,  T  am 
sorry  to  say,  not  outside  the  bounds  of  possibility,  however 

1*  The  Geographical  Journal,  p.  33  et  seq.,  July,  1917. 


162  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

momv?Iltv^QB  may  be  the  consequences,  not  only  to  our  trade 
but  also  to  our  whole  political  future.  If  it  be  achieved, 
German  enterprise  will  dominate  the  countries  west  of 
India  and  will  extend  along  two  great  arms  to  the  frontiers 
of  Egypt  and  to  the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf.  Regions 
lying  upon  the  main  line  of  the  maritime  communications  of 
the  British  Empire  will  gradually,  but  none  the  less  irrevo- 
cably, become  invested  with  a  political  complexion  and  bias 
out  of  harmony  with  our  vital  interests." 

But  this  was  not  all.  Judging  by  the  articles  that  filled 
the  English  press  after  the  concession  for  building  the 
Bagdad  Railway  had  been  granted  to  Germany,  the  great 
fear  of  many  in  England  was  that  this  concession  would 
lead  to  a  protectorate  over  Turkey  by  the  Teutonic 
Powers;^®  that  it  ** would  permanently  diminish  English 
credit  in  the  East  and  throughout  all  Islam"  and  exalt 
German  prestige  at  Britain's  expense;  that  it  involved  the 
ousting  of  England  from  their  "former  political  and  com- 
mercial primacy  in  the  Ottoman  Empire ' ' ;  that,  to  quote  a 
British  writer,  it  would  ** squeeze  us  out  of  Asiatic  Turkey," 
as  the  diplomacy  of  Germany  had  *  *  succeeded  in  squeezing 
us  out  of  East  Africa  where  we  surrendered  to  her  territory 
which  was  ours  by  virtue  of  having  been  explored  by  Speke, 
Grant  and  Stanley."" 

In  the  meantime  the  Teutonic  Powers  were  trying  to 
secure  the  necessary  capital  for  their  stupendous  enter- 
prise. From  the  very  beginning  of  their  vast  undertaking 
they,  under  the  lead  of  Dr.  Siemens,  president  of  the  Admin- 
istrative Board  of  the  Anatolian  Railway,  fully  realized 
the  difficulties  they  would  encounter  in  securing  the  funds 
requisite  to  cover  the  enormous  cost  of  their  colossal  work. 
But  to  achieve  success  they  had  recourse  to  all  the  methods 

15  TAe  Fortnightly  Review,  p.  777,  May,  1911. 

16  Speaking  in  the  British  Parliament  April  8,  1903,  Lord  E.  Fitzmaurice 
went  still  further  when  he  declared:  "Bound  up  with  the  future  of  this 
(Bagdad)  Railway  there  is  probably  the  future  political  control  of  large 
regions  in  Asia  Minor,  Mesopotamia  and  the  Persian  Gulf." 

17  The  Fortnightly  Review,  p.  216,  February,  1914. 


THE  BAGDAD  RAILWAY  163 

of  shrewd  business  and  sane  diplomacy.  And  tliey  were 
quick  to  perceive  that  the  wisest  and  safest  policy  would 
be  to  work  along  the  line  of  least  resistance.  Instead,  there- 
fore, of  antagonizing  their  defeated  competitors  they  would 
invite  them  to  cooperate  with  them  in  the  construction  and 
operation  of  the  great  steel  highway.  They  would,  in  a 
word,  internationalize  it  and  make  it  a  purely  commercial 
enterprise,  whose  sole  object  would  be  the  expansion  of 
western  trade  and  the  development  of  the  fabulous  re- 
sources of  the  mysterious  East. 

But,  as  the  concessionaires  soon  discovered  to  their  sur- 
prise and  disappointment,  this  was  more  easily  said  than 
done.  The  story  of  their  many  and  long  negotiations  with 
foreign  capitalists  and  statesmen  is  a  long  one  and  reveals, 
as  few  other  things  have  done,  national  jealousies,  distrusts, 
and  ambitions.  Each  of  the  nations  concerned  desired  to 
have  the  lion's  share  in  the  building  and  management  of  the 
road,  and,  when  this  was  impossible,  those  who  had  perforce 
to  accept  minor  parts,  or  none  at  all,  strove  by  every  means 
in  their  power,  covertly  or  openly,  to  misrepresent  the 
object  of  the  undertaking  and  damn  it  in  the  estimation  of 
those  who  were  counted  on  to  cooperate  in  carrying  the 
enterprise  to  a  successful  conclusion. 

Neither  the  French  nor  the  English  government  was 
willing  to  give  the  Bagdad  Railway  project  official  recom- 
mendation. This  attitude  of  the  two  governments  deterred 
many  capitalists  from  investing  in  an  enterprise  which  they 
had  been  disposed  to  view  most  favorably.  The  French 
Government  went  so  far  as  to  forbid  the  securities  to  be 
listed  on  the  Bourse." 

But  the  chief  opposition  to  the  project  came  not  so  much 
from  the  governments  in  question  as  from  the  press.  This 
was  particularly  the  case  in  England. 

A  letter  written  in  1903  by  the  late  Sir  Clinton  Dawkins — 


i8'*Le8  Gouvernment  fran^ais  et  anglais  refuserent  formellment  leur  appro- 
bation et  leur  appui  et  conseillerent  k  leur  nationaux  de  s'en  abstenir."  E. 
Aubl6,  op.  oit.,  p.  15. 


164  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

one  of  a  group  of  English  capitalists  who  were  eager  to 
cooperate  with  the  Germans  in  the  building  of  the  Bagdad 
Railway — to  Herr  Arthur  von  Gwinner,  the  successor  of 
Dr.  von  Siemens  as  director  of  the  road,  leaves  no  doubt 
about  this  whatever. 

The  fact  is  [Sir  Clinton  writes]  that  the  business  has 
become  involved  in  politics  here,  and  has  been  sacrificed  to 
the  very  violent  and  bitter  feeling  against  Germany  exhib- 
ited by  the  majority  of  our  newspapers  and  shared  in  by 
a  large  number  of  people. 

This  is  a  feeling  which,  as  the  history  of  recent  events  will 
show  you,  is  not  shared  by  the  Government  or  reflected  in 
official  circles.  But  of  its  intensity  outside  those  circles, 
for  the  moment,  there  can  be  no  doubt;  at  the  present 
moment  cooperation  in  any  enterprise  which  could  be  rep- 
resented, or,  I  might  more  justly  say,  misrepresented,  as 
German  will  meet  with  a  violent  hostility  which  our  govern- 
ment has  to  consider.  .  .  .  The  anti-German  feeling  pre- 
vailed with  the  majority;  London  having  really  gone  into 
a  frenzy  on  the  matter,  owing  to  the  newspaper  campaign 
which  it  would  have  been  quite  impossible  to  counteract  or 
influence.^® 

As  a  result  of  an  important  meeting  of  Potsdam  between 
the  Czar  and  the  Kaiser  in  November  1910,  Russia  waived 
all  share  in  the  Bagdad  Railway.  The  reason  for  this  with- 
drawal was,  it  is  asserted,  the  willingness  of  Germany  to 
allow  Russia  to  build  a  railway  in  the  north  of  Persia  which 
should  eventually  connect  with  a  branch  of  the  Bagdad 
Railway  at  Khanakin  on  the  Persian  frontier. 

The  reason,  therefore,  why  the  Bagdad  Railway  was  not 
internationalized,  as  was  the  desire  of  Dr.  Siemens  and 
his  associates,  is  manifest.     The  nations  constituting  the 

^^  The  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  1090  et  seq.,  June,  1909. 

It  is  gratifying  to  know  that  this  anti-German  feeling  was  not  shared  by 
Sir  Clinton  and  his  associates  and  by  clear-visioned  men  like  Sir  Edwin  Pears 
who  did  not  hesitate  to  declare:  "The  Germans,  in  inviting  British  coopera- 
tion from  the  first,  have  acted  fairly  and  loyally."  The  Contemporary  Review, 
p.  689,  November,  1908. 


THE  BAGDAD  RAILWAY  165 

Entente  Cordiale  were  unwilling  to  accept  the  offer  of 
the  concessionaires,  who  thereafter  proceeded  to  con- 
struct the  line  without  outside  assistance.^" 

When  the  statesmen  and  financiers  of  France  and  Eng- 
land found  that  internationalization  of  the  Bagdad  Railway 
was  impossible  and  that  the  Germans  were  preparing  to 
build  it  without  their  cooperation  they  bethought  themselves 
of  killing  the  enterprise  by  creating  a  financial  vacuum : 

"Let  a  vacuum  of  capital  be  created  around  the  Bagdad 
Railway/'  ironically  writes  M.  Andre  Geraud,  who  had  no 
sympathy  with  the  methods  his  countrymen  and  their 
English  allies  had  adopted  in  their  dealings  with  the  German 
concessionaires,  **let  the  Anglo-French  air-pump  be  set  in 
action,  and  then,  as  soon  as  the  pecuniary  oxygen  becomes 
rarefied,  the  Bagdad  Railway  will  be  seen  to  languish  and 
die."" 

But  this  method,  it  was  soon  discovered,  utterly  failed  to 
have  the  desired  effect.  It  neither  deprived  the  railway 
company  of  resources  nor  checked  its  activity.  ''The  air- 
pump,"  as  M.  Geraud  wittily  remarks,  "broke  down  as  soon 
as  it  was  started."  " 

The  time  had  passed  when  it  could  be  truthfully  said  that 
the  Bagdad  Railway  could  not  be  built  by  a  single  power. 
The  same  statement  had  been  made  regarding  the  Suez 
Canal,  but  France,  under  the  lead  of  De  Lesseps,  showed 
what  the  enterprise  and  the  genius  of  her  people  were 
capable  of  accomplishing  when  they  were  united  in  an 
undertaking  that  was  to  reflect  on  them  imperishable  glory 

20 M.  Auble,  op.  cit.,  p.  16,  referring  to  this  matter,  writes:  "Si  en  elle — 
mSme  1  enterprise  du  Chemin  de  Fer  de  Bagdad  est  rest^  telle  qu'  elle  s'est 
presentee  au  debut,  une  oeuvre  allemande,  c'est  parce  qu'on  n'  a  pas  voulu 
profiter  des  offres  allemandes  pour  lui  donner  un  caractere  international." 

21  The  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  1312,  June,  1914. 

22  Ibid.,  p.  1313.  After  all  negotiations  looking  towards  internationaliza- 
tion of  the  Bagdad  Railway  had  failed,  M.  Geraud,  who  is  evidently  a  mon- 
archist, wrote:  "We  cannot  help  regretting  that  the  two  powers  who  held 
the  protectorate  of  the  Orient — France  her  old  religious  protectorate,  and 
England  the  protectorate  of  Anatolia  sanctioned  by  the  Cyprus  Convention — 
should,  in  the  space  of  one  generation,  have  laid  down  such  beneficent 
•weapons.  ...  In  order  that  so  much  destruction  could  be  consummated,  all 
that  was  responsible  in  England  and  France  was  the  rule  of  democracy.'' 


166  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

and  redound  at  the  same  time  to  the  welfare  of  humanity. 

Confident  in  their  ability  to  construct  the  Bagdad  Rail- 
way unaided,  the  Germans,  under  the  guidance  of  able 
financiers,  were  not  long  in  demonstrating  to  the  world  that 
their  enterprise  was  in  no  wise  inferior  to  that  which  led 
to  the  magnificent  achievement  of  the  French  in  the  Land  of 
the  Pharaohs. 

The  hostile  attitude  of  the  Anglo-French  press  towards 
the  Bagdad  Railway  was  not  allowed  to  pass  unnoticed 
by  the  publicists  of  Germany.  From  the  day  that  the 
irade  authorizing  the  building  of  the  great  railroad  was 
issued  they  had  been  enthusiastic  about  the  enterprise  that 
was,  they  felt  sure,  to  be  of  inestimable  advantage  to  the 
Fatherland.  They  descanted  especially  on  it  as  an  agency 
for  developing  German  trade  in  the  Near  East,  whose  com- 
merce hitherto  had  been  almost  entirely  in  the  hands  of 
their  rivals.  They  fondly  pointed  to  the  day,  in  the  not  dis- 
tant future,  when  they  would  be  able  to  exploit  the  vast 
mineral  riches  of  Asia  Minor,  and  when  Anatolia,  Syria, 
and  Mesopotamia,  as  a  result  of  intensive  culture  under 
German  direction,  would  be  able  to  supply  them  with  untold 
stores  of  grain,  wool,  cotton,  fruit,  petroleum,  and  other 
commodities ;  when,  thanks  to  their  control  of  the  Bagdad 
Railway  and  its  branches,  they  would  enjoy  a  virtual 
monopoly  of  near  eastern  commerce. 

The  eminent  German  engineer,  Wilhelm  von  Pressel,  who 
had  served  the  Fatherland  so  long  and  so  well  in  the  Otto- 
man Empire,^^  prepared  plans  for  connecting  Europe  with 
Asia  by  a  tunnel  under  the  Bosphorus.  But  his  fellow 
countryman,  Siegmund  Schneider,  insisted  that  the  two 
continents  should  be  connected  by  a  bridge,  which  he  de- 
scribes in  a  dithyrambic  fashion  which  most  vividly  exhibits 
the  exaltation  of  the  promoters  of  the  great  BerlLu  to  Bag- 
dad Railway. 

28  Cf.  his  interesting  brochure,  Les  Chemins  de  Fer  in  Turquie  d'Asie 
(Zurich,  1902). 


THE  BAGDAD  RAILWAY  167 

The  architectural  effect  [Herr  Schneider  writes]  of  the 
metallic  mass  richly  gilded,  suspended  from  massive  piers, 
crowned  by  glittering  cupolas  and  minarets,  brilliantly 
illuminated  at  night  would  be  fantastic.  This  bridge  would 
constitute  a  formidable  closure  of  the  enfilade  of  fortified 
works  with  which  the  Turkish  coasts  bristle.  Its  debouches 
in  Asia  and  Europe  would  be  defended  by  powerful  bridge- 
heads, its  piers  would  be  armed  with  armored  rotary  bat- 
teries whose  long  range  would  infallibly  sink  any  squadron 
that  would  venture  into  the  Strait.  .  .  .  The  express  trains 
of  the  future  will  go  directly  from  Berlin  to  Babylonia  in 
five  days.'** 

German  engineers  confidently  asserted  that  the  day  was 
not  far  distant  when  trains  de  luxe  equal  to  any  in  Europe 
or  America  would  cover  the  distance  between  Constanti- 
nople and  Bagdad  in  sixty-five  hours.  The  time  formerly 
required  to  make  the  journey  between  these  two  cities  by 
caravan  was  from  fifty  to  fifty-five  days.^" 

Nor  was  this  an  empty  boast.  No  road  has  ever  been 
more  carefully  or  more  solidly  built  than  is  the  Bagdad 
Railway.  Roadbed,  culverts,  revetments,  bridges  are  of 
the  strongest  and  most  durable  materials.  The  sleepers  are 
of  metal,  while  the  steel  rails  are  specially  made  for  sharp 
curves  and  fast  and  heavy  trains.  German  engineers 
declare  that  they  are  the  heaviest  in  existence.  At  a  time 
when  the  heaviest  rails  used  in  the  United  States  weighed 
one  hundred  pounds  per  lineal  yard,  those  selected  for  the 
Bagdad  Railroad  weighed  twenty  per  cent  more.  And  so  it 
is  with  the  warehouses,  the  ofiices,  and  especially  the  sta- 
tions all  along  the  line.  So  massive  are  the  last-named 
structures  that  they  are  called  ** German  Castles."  Indeed, 
it  is  the  firm  conviction  of  many  that  these  buildings  were 
80  designed  that  they  might  serve  as  strongholds  in 
emergencies,  such  as  sudden  uprisings  of  lawless  nomads 

^*  Revue  de  QSographie,  p.  398,  May,  1902. 

28  According  to  Herodotus  it  was  a  three  months'  journey  from  Ephesufl  to 
Susa — a  somewhat  greater  distance  than  from  Constantinople  to  Bagdad. 


168  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

or  fanatical  Moslems.  Nothing  was  left  to  chance.  So  far 
as  experience  and  engineering  science  could  forecast  the 
necessities  of  the  future,  provision  was  made  for  all  eventu- 
alities— save  only  such  a  cataclysm  as  a  world  war,  which 
threatened  to  interrupt  the  continuity  of  civilization. 

As  to  the  end  and  aim  of  the  Bagdad  Railway  we  are  left 
in  no  doubt. 

We  must  [writes  Professor  Diering]  be  true  to  ourselves 
by  emphasizing  and  cultivating  everything  German.  In  all 
undertakings  engineered  by  German  diplomacy  and  financed 
with  German  money  the  official  language  must  be  German. 
Hence  French,  which  has  been  the  official  language  on  Turk- 
ish Railways,  must  disappear.  There  must  be  a  German 
school  near  every  large  railway  station;  and  in  these 
schools  both  the  German  and  Turkish  languages  must  be 
employed  in  giving  instruction ;  any  other  language  will  be 
merely  taught.  Only  specially  selected  and  well-educated 
teachers  should  be  sent  to  Turkey.  Above  all,  German 
medical  men  must  be  introduced  into  Turkey's  railway  sys- 
tem. They  are  the  best  medium  for  spreading  German  influ- 
ence and  for  awakening  esteem  and  affection  for  Germany. 

On  broad  lines  it  is  now  quite  clear  what  form  the  future 
Turkish  Empire  will  assume.  From  Tripolis  across  to 
Persia  and  on  to  the  ridges  of  the  Caucasus,  German  energy 
— ^without  injury  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  Osmanic  State — 
will  cooperate  in  Turkey's  renaissance  and  in  the  develop- 
ment of  her  treasures.  But  our  enemies,  together  with  their 
money,  languages  and  schools  will  disappear  from  the  terri^ 
tories  which  they  hoped  to  divide  among  themselves.^* 

Equally  explicit  is  another  German  writer,  Herr  Trampe, 
respecting  the  ulterior  object  of  the  Bagdad  Railway. 

The  ancient  high-road  of  the  world  [he  declares]  is  the 
one  which  leads  from  Europe  to  India — the  road  used  by 
Alexander — the  highway  which  leads  from  the  Danube  via 

MSuddeuUche  Monatahefte,  September,  1915.  Cf.  The  Quarterly  Review, 
p.  149,  January,  1917. 


THE  BAGDAD  RAILWAY  169 

Constantinople  to  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates,  and  by 
northern  Persia,  Herat,  and  Kabul  to  the  Ganges.  Every 
yard  of  the  Bagdad  Railway  which  is  laid  brings  the  owner 
of  the  railway  nearer  to  India.  What  Alexander  performed 
and  Napoleon  undoubtedly  planned  can  be  achieved  by  a 
third  treading  in  their  footsteps.  England  views  the  Bag- 
dad Railway  as  a  very  real  and  threatening  danger  to 
herself — and  rightly  so.  She  can  never  undo  or  annul  its 
effects,^^ 

The  increasingly  hostile  attitude  of  the  Entente  Cordiale 
toward  the  Bagdad  Railway,  the  violent  ebullitions  of  the 
press  of  the  rival  powers  portended  trouble.  No  sooner  had 
the  concession  for  the  building  of  the  Bagdad  Railway  been 
officially  announced  than  it  began  to  weigh  as  a  nightmare 
on  a  great  part  of  Europe.  The  chancelleries  of  the  Old 
World  began  then  to  realize  more  clearly  than  ever  before 
the  boundless  possibilities  of  the  great  oriental  highway. 
English  statesmen  saw  in  it  the  virtual  doubling  of  the 
German  fleet  at  the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  then 
the  cry  was  heard  throughout  Britain,  **Let  us  have  the 
Russians  at  Constantinople  rather  than  a  great  power  on 
the  Persian  Gulf." 

The  Bagdad  Railway  [declares  an  English  writer]  was 
a  damnosa  hcereditas,  which  was  due  as  much  to  a  lack  of 
imagination  and  effective  organization  on  the  part  of  our 
business  community  in  the  eighties  and  nineties  of  the  last 
century,  as  it  undoubtedly  was  to  a  mistaken  policy  in  those 
critical  years  on  the  part  of  the  British  Government." 

Small  wonder,  then,  is  it  that  the  Bagdad  Railway  was 
from  the  very  beginning  of  the  great  World  War  considered 
as  one  of  the  chief  contributing  causes  of  the  terrific  cata- 
clysm of  the  second  decade  of  the  twentieth  century  and 
that,  whatever  political,  economic,  and  social  adjustments 
may  be  entailed  as  a  result  of  the  most  stupendous  struggle 

27 Der  Kampf  urn  die  Dardanelles  (Stuttgart,  1916). 
28  The  Quarterly  Review,  p.  528,  October,  1917. 


170  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

of  history,  it  is  destined  to  modify  even  more  profoundly 
the  relations  between  the  Orient  and  the  Occident  than 
did  the  far-reaching  campaigns  of  Alexander  the  Great, 
which  introduced  Greek  people  and  Greek  culture  to  the 
East  and  made  known  to  the  West  the  riches  and  the  won- 
ders of  Persia  and  India  and  Babylonia. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

IN  THE  FOOTSTEPS  OF  THE  CRUSADERS 

Nations  melt 
From  power's  high  pinnacle,  when  they  have  felt 
The  sunshine  for  a  while,  and  downward  go 
Like  lauwine  loosened  from  the  mountain's  helt. 
Byron  * '  Childe  Harold 's  Pilgrimage, ' '  Canto  IV,  12. 

Aside  from  the  interest  which  attaches  to  it  as  the  north- 
western terminus  of  the  Bagdad  Railway,  Konia,  the  ancient 
Iconium,  like  so  many  other  places  in  Anatolia,  is  extremely 
rich  in  legendary  and  historic  lore.  According  to  a  local 
myth  it  was  the  first  spot  to  emerge  from  the  waters  of  the 
Deluge.  It  is  mentioned  in  the  legend  of  Perseus  and 
the  Gorgons.  A  local  legend  has  it  that  the  name  was 
derived  from  the  Greek  word  eikon — ^figure  or  image — refer- 
ring to  the  mud  figures,  which,  when  breathed  upon  by  the 
wind,  were  converted  into  living  men  and  women.  This  is 
evidently  a  variant  of  the  old  myth  of  Deucalion  and 
Pyrrha.  It  was  doubtless  this  pride  in  their  great  antiquity 
and  a  belief  that  Phrygian  was  the  primitive  language  of 
our  race  that  led  the  inhabitants  of  Iconium  to  claim  a 
Phrygian  origin.  That  Phrygian  was  really  the  oldest 
language  they  had  no  doubt.  For,  it  was  averred,  the 
Egyptian  King,  Psametik,  had  conclusively  proved  this  by 
showing  that  **  infants  brought  up  out  of  hearing  of  human 
speech  spoke  the  Phrygian  language." 

The  Ten  Thousand  Greeks,  in  the  army  of  Cyrus,  halted 
here  on  their  famous  expedition  to  southern  Mesopotamia. 
Cicero  reviewed  his  troops  here  when  he  was  proconsul  of 
Cilicia.  It  was  one  of  the  important  missionary  centers 
of  the  early  evangelizing  activity  of  St.  Paul.  It  was  to 
this  city  that,  accompanied  by  Barnabas,  he  directed  his 
steps  after  he  had  been  expelled  by  the  Jews  from  Antioch. 

171 


172  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

In  Roman  times  Iconium  stood  at  the  intersection  of 
several  important  highways  and  was  designated  by  Pliny 
urbs  celeberrima — a  most  celebrated  city.  According  to  a 
venerable  tradition,  Iconium  had  for  its  first  bishop  Sosi- 
patros,  one  of  the  seventy-two  disciples,  who  was  succeeded 
in  the  episcopal  chair  by  Terentius,  likewise  one  of  this 
chosen  body  of  disciples.  Equally  noteworthy  is  the  fact 
that  Iconium  was  the  birthplace  of  St.  Thecla,  who  is  said 
to  have  been  converted  to  Christianity  by  the  Apostle  St. 
Paul.  She  is  the  heroine  of  the  Acta  Pauli  et  Theclce. 
From  the  earliest  ages  of  the  Church  she  was  greatly 
venerated  in  Asia  Minor,  where  she  was  known  as  the 
' '  Apostle  and  Proto-martyr  among  "Women.  * '  In  the  Greek 
Church  her  feast  is  celebrated  on  the  twenty-fourth  of  Sep- 
tember under  the  title  of  *' Proto-martyr  among  Women 
and  the  Equal  of  the  Apostles." 

And  here,  according  to  a  venerable  tradition  on  which 
oriental  geographers  set  much  store,  is  the  tomb  of  ''Plato 
the  Divine, ' '  who,  under  the  name  of  Eflat,  is  revered  by  the 
local  population  as  a  thaumaturgus.  The  origin  of  this 
singular  tradition  in  this  part  of  Anatolia — so  distant  from 
the  real  burying  place  of  the  immortal  philosopher — is  one 
of  the  curiosities  of  Ottoman  folklore.^ 

During  two  centuries — from  1099  to  1307 — Iconium  was 
the  capital  of  the  Seljuk  Sultans  of  Rum  ^  and  is  still 
regarded  as  one  of  the  holy  places  of  Islam.  Many  of  its 
sultans  were  patrons  of  art  and  literature,  and,  during  the 
zenith  of  its  splendor,  this  Seljukian  metropolis  could  boast 
of  nearly  as  many  colleges  and  students  as  Bagdad — the 
far-famed  capital  of  the  Abbasside  Caliphate. 

Its  present  chief  est  title  to  fame  is  the  tomb  of  the  noted 
Jelal-ed-din-Rumi,  usually  known  as  Mevlana.  He  was 
famed  for  knowledge  and  wisdom  and  was  the  founder  of 

1  For  an  interesting  article  on  this  subject,  see  "Plato  in  the  Folk-lore  of 
the  Konia  Plain,"  by  F.  W.  Hasluck,  in  the  Annual  of  the  British  School  of 
Athens,  No.  XVIII. 

2  Called  Rum — Rome — because  it  was,  before  its  conquest  by  the  Seljuks,  a 
portion  of  the  Roman-Byzantine  Empire. 


IN  THE  FOOTSTEPS  OF  THE  CRUSADERS   173 

the  Dancing  Dervishes  and  the  author  of  the  *'Mesnevi,"  a 
celebrated  poem  in  Persian  verse,  in  which  is  instilled  the 
Sufi  system  of  pantheism.  His  successors,  as  heads  of 
the  Dancing  Dervishes,  have  their  residence  in  Iconium  and 
theirs  is  the  right  and  the  privilege  to  gird  each  Ottoman 
Sultan,  on  his  accession  to  the  throne,  with  the  historic 
sword  of  Osman  This  imposing  function,  which  is  per- 
formed in  the  Mosque  of  Eyub  in  Stamboul,  has  been  likened 
to  the  coronation  by  the  Pope  of  the  Holy  Roman  Emperor. 

By  those  who  know  them  best  the  better  class  of  Dancing, 
or,  more  properly,  the  Whirling  Dervishes,  are  described 
as  being  a  very  tolerant  and  large-minded  people.  Thus  it 
is  said  that  "in  the  dangerous  period  in  the  winter  of  1895- 
1896,  when  religious  and  national  feeling  ran  high  in  Tur- 
key, it  was  mainly  owing  to  the  Mevlevis  that  the  softas  of 
Konia  were  prevented  from  attacking  the  Christian  popu- 
lation of  the  town."  * 

But  the  orthodox  Moslems,  as  represented  by  the  softas 
and  mollahs,  do  not  regard  with  sympathy  the  peculiar 
ceremonial  practices  of  the  various  orders  of  dervishes, 
especially  their  use  of  incense,  music,  and  lighted  candles 
in  public  worship  To  the  strict  followers  of  the  Koran  the 
characteristic  forms  of  worship  of  the  Mevlevis  and  Ruf ais, 
more  commonly  known  as  the  Dancing  and  Howling  Der- 
vishes, are  as  distasteful  as  are  the  ritualistic  services  of 
certain  modern  Anglicans  to  the  conservative  members 
of  the  Church  of  England.  As  to  the  esoteric  doctrines  of 
the  dervishes,  especially  those  based  on  the  Mesnevi,  they 
are  declared  by  the  doctors  of  Islam  to  be  quite  irrecon- 
cilable with  both  the  Koran  and  the  Hadith — the  accepted 
traditions  of  Mohammedanism.  It  must  be  said  that  the 
bizarre  performances  of  the  Dancing  and  Howling  Der- 
vishes— perfox'mances  which  are  resorted  to  as  a  means  of 
detaching  the  minds  of  the  devotees  from  all  things  earthly 
and  attaining  a  state  of  spiritual  ecstasy — are  to  the  casual 

"See  Turkey  in  Europe,  p.  185  (by  C.  Eliot,  London,  1908). 


174  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

spectator  but  little  different  in  kind  from  certain  revivals 
of  our  southern  negrt)es.  The  solemn  dervishes,  however, 
exhibit  far  more  dignity  and  reverence  in  their  devotions 
than  do  the  excitable  and  noisy  Africans  in  their  camp- 
meetings  and  revivalistic  gatherings. 

Surrounded  by  a  barren  and  desolate  country,  Konia, 
when  seen  from  afar,  looks  like  an  oasis  in  the  desert.  It  is 
situated  on  an  elevated  plateau  well-watered  by  mountain 
streams  and  blessed  with  a  salubrious  climate.  It  was 
these  attractive  features  that  led  the  Seljukian  Turks  to 
choose  it  for  their  capital.  Its  luxuriant  gardens  and 
orchards  have  long  been  famous  and  add  much  to  the  city's 
picturesqueness — especially  when  viewed  from  a  distance. 
For  when  one  enters  the  old  Seljukian  capital  there  is  little 
to  attract  attention  except  a  few  mosques.  Of  the  old  Greek 
city  practically  nothing  remains  aside  from  the  fragments 
of  friezes,  cornices,  bas-reliefs,  and  ancient  inscriptions 
which  are  found  in  the  walls  which  surround  the  erstwhile 
Seljukian  capital.  Here,  as  in  so  many  other  places  in 
Anatolia,  the  Turks,  when  requiring  material  for  their 
mosques  and  palaces,  converted  the  imposing  temples  of 
the  Greeks,  Romans,  and  Byzantines  into  quarries  for  stone, 
and  lime.  As  in  Nicaea,  a  great  part  of  the  space  within  the 
walls  of  Konia  is  covered  with  crumbling  ruins  overgrown 
with  weeds  and  bushes.  The  poet  must  have  had  such  a 
scene  in  his  mind 's  eye  when  he  penned  the  lines : 

There  a  temple  in  ruin  stands 

Fashioned  hy  long -for  gotten  hands; 

Two  or  three  columns  and  many  a  stone, 

Marhle  and  granite  with  grass  overgrown 

Out  upon  time!    It  will  leave  no  more 

Of  the  things  to  come  than  the  things  hefore. 

Modern  Konia,  a  good  part  of  which  lies  outside  of  the 
walls  of  the  Seljuk  capital  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
is  composed  of  one-story  buildings,  constructed  chiefly  of 
wood  and  sun-dried  bricks.    But  amid  all  the  squalor  and 


IN  THE  FOOTSTEPS  OF  THE  CRUSADERS   175 

decay  that  distinguishes  this  historic  city  there  are  several 
mosques  and  medresses — colleges — ^which  will  well  repay 
careful  inspection. 

Among  the  buildings  deserving  particular  attention  is 
the  splendid  tekke  of  the  Dancing  Dervishes,  in  which  is 
the  tomb  of  Hazret  Mevlana,  the  founder  of  this  peculiar 
order.  It  is  popularly  known  as  the  **Blue  Mosque"  from 
the  exquisite  sapphire  and  turquoise  blue  tiles  which  until 
recently  covered  the  cupola  that  rises  above  the  great  tur- 
beh  of  the  founder.  There  is  nothing  in  Brusa,  Stamboul, 
or  Cairo  that  can  surpass  its  rich  and  delicate  traceries  and 
arabesques,  its  profusion  of  jeweled  lamps,  its  wealth, 
precious  tapestries,  wondrous  faience,  its  magic  glories  of 
color  from  the  looms  and  kilns  of  Persia  and  India.  But 
over  and  above  all  this  wealth  of  ornamentation  there  is  a 
religious  atmosphere  that  does  not  exist  in  the  ordinary 
mosque.  For  the  dervishes,  unlike  the  orthodox  Moslems, 
make  a  special  appeal  to  the  emotions  of  their  followers, 
and  hence  their  widespread  influence  and  popularity 
throughout  the  Mohammedan  world. 

There  is,  however,  no  attempt  made  here  to  affect  the 
emotions  through  any  of  the  plastic  or  pictorial  arts.  In 
this  respect  the  Blue  Mosque,  like  every  other  mosque  in 
Islam,  is  absolutely  devoid  of  paintings  and  statues.  The 
reason  is  that  Moslem  law  proscribes  all  representations 
of  the  human  form,  either  in  painting  or  statuary,  as  im- 
pious, because  they  are  regarded  **as  encouragements  to 
idolatry  and  as  profanations  of  God's  chief  handiwork."* 

According  to  one  of  the  traditional  sayings  of  Moham- 
med, ''Whoever  draws  a  picture  will  at  the  day  of  resurrec- 
tion be  punished  by  being  ordered  to  blow  a  spirit  into  it ; 
and  this  he  can  never  do ;  and  so  he  will  be  punished  as  long 
as  God  wills."  Nor  does  the  Prophet  leave  any  doubt  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  punishment,  for  he  declares  explicitly, 

4  In  the  Koran,  Sura  V.  it  is  written,  "O  believers!  surely  wine  and  games 
of  chance  and  statues,  and  divining  arrows  are  an  abomination  of  Satan's 
work!     Avoid  them  that  ye  may  prosper." 


176  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

"Every  painter  is  in  hell-fire."  In  another  saying,  how- 
ever, he  greatly  modifies  this  pitiless  statement  and  tells 
the  painter,  "If  you  must  make  pictures,  make  them  of  trees 
and  of  things  without  souls."  It  is  because  of  this  con- 
cession to  artists  that  one  may  frequently  see  in  Moham- 
medan houses  pictures  of  flowers  and  trees  and  even  of 
landscapes,  provided  there  be  in  them  no  delineation  of  "the 
human  form  divine."  But  in  the  homes  of  the  strict  adher- 
ents of  Moslemism  all  images  are  rigorously  tabooed,  for, 
according  to  another  saying  of  the  Prophet,  "Angels  do  not 
enter  into  the  house  in  which  is  a  dog,  nor  into  that  in  which 
are  pictures." " 

Konia  is  now  a  flourishing  city  of  about  sixty  thousand 
souls.  Most  of  its  inhabitants,  like  those  of  Brusa,  are  pure 
Turks,  who  rigidly  adhere  not  only  to  the  religion  but  also 
to  the  manners  and  customs  of  their  fathers.  There  is  here, 
however,  a  goodly  number  of  Greeks,  Armenians,  and  Ger- 
mans, besides  whom  there  is  also,  among  the  employees  of 
the  Bagdad  Railway,  a  sprinkling  of  Swiss,  French,  and 
Italians.  Among  the  various  institutions  we  visited,  none 
gave  us  more  agreeable  surprise  than  those  established  here 
some  decades  ago  by  the  Priests  and  Sisters  of  the  Assump- 
tion from  France,  which  are  in  a  very  prosperous  condition. 
The  Sisters  have  a  school  and  dispensary,  and  their  devoted 
care  of  the  poor  and  sick  has  made  them  greatly  beloved  by 
all  classes,  irrespective  of  creed.  Nowhere  is  the  zeal  of 
the  ardent  French  nun  seen  to  better  advantage  than  in 
foreign  missions,  where  her  enthusiasm,  notwithstanding 
the  great  difficulties  she  frequently  encounters,  never  abates 
and  where  she  exhibits  a  happiness  that  communicates  itself 
to  all  who  come  in  contact  with  her. 

Nowhere  in  Anatolia,  except  probably  in  Brusa,  has  one 


6  Cf.  Mishcat-Ul-Masahih,  or  a  Collection  of  the  Most  Authentic  Traditions 
Regarding  the  Actions  and  Sayings  of  Mohammed,  Vol.  II,  pp.  368-370  (trans, 
from  the  Original  Arabic  by  Capt.  A.  N.  Mathews,  Calcutta,  1809).  "The 
Angel  Gabriel  did  not  visit  Mohammed  as  he  promised  to  do  one  night  because 
of  the  presence  of  a  puppy,  saying  to  Mohammed  'we  angels  do  not  go  into 
a  house  in  which  are  pictures  or  dogs,'  *'     Vol.  II,  p.  368. 


IN  THE  FOOTSTEPS  OF  THE  CRUSADERS   177 

a  better  opportunity  to  study  the  manners  and  customs 
and  simple  pastimes  of  the  genuine  Turk  than  in  Konia. 
Theaters  and  operas,  as  we  know  them,  they  have  not. 
From  all  social  assemblages,  like  those  in  the  western 
world,  which  are  frequented  by  men  and  women  alike,  they 
are  debarred  by  a  custom  that  is  more  binding  than  the 
laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians. 

But  notwithstanding  the  total  absence  of  all  the  entertain- 
ments that  contribute  so  much  to  the  pleasure  of  the  people 
of  Europe  and  America,  the  Anatolian  has  a  way  of  spend- 
ing his  leisure  hours  that  quite  satisfies  him  His  amuse- 
ments are  simple  indeed,  but  with  them  he  is  content. 

Most  of  these  center  in  the  coffeehouse,  which,  to  a  great 
extent,  takes  the  place  of  the  restaurant  in  France  and  the 
club  in  the  United  States.  Like  the  club  and  restaurant 
the  Turkish  coffeehouse 

7s  the  resort  of  puilic  men;  the  haunt 

Of  wealthy  idlers  and  the  try  sting -place 

Of  such  as  have  no  home  to  indicate — 

A  place  where  each  may  come  and  go  at  will, 

Think  his  own  thoughts,  pursue  his  own  affairs, 

Or  fling  his  ore  of  feeling  and  of  sense 

Into  the  common  crucible. 

Unlike  the  club  and  restaurant,  the  coffeehouse  serves 
no  food  or  alcoholic  liquors  of  any  kind.  Aside  from  the 
people  who  congregate  there,  and  it  is  usually  well-patron- 
ized, its  attractions  are  as  limited  as  they  are  simple.  In 
the  less  pretentious  places  these  are  confined  to  coffee, 
tobacco,  and,  occasionally,  the  Medak,  or  story-teller.  In 
the  more  sumptuous  places  of  the  larger  cities  there  is 
also  music,  but  it  is  generally  of  a  very  inferior  quality,  for 
the  instruments  employed  are  for  the  most  part  limited  to 
a  drum,  a  tambourine,  and  two  or  three  rude  guitars. 

In  Anatolia,  as  in  all  Moslem  countries,  the  Medak  is  a 
most  popular  character.  Not  infrequently  his  ability  is  so 
marked  that  he  attains  the  rank  of  a  personage,  and  his 


178  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

services  on  festive  occasions  are  in  great  demand  and  for 
them  he  is  liberally  remunerated.  The  admirable  manner 
in  which  he  can,  unaided,  fill  the  role  of  entire  casts  of  the 
most  diverse  characters,  his  marvelous  versatility  in  per- 
sonating the  people  of  different  nations,  and  in  imitating 
the  tones,  phraseologies,  and  even  the  facial  expression 
of  the  multitudinous  races  of  the  Turkish  empire  are  really 
astonishing  and  are  to  his  audience  a  source  of  unending 
delight.  Not  a  few  of  the  Medaks,  in  addition  to  histrionic 
talent  that  would  do  honor  to  the  best  European  stage,  have 
a  gift  of  expression  and  a  facility  of  invention  that  make 
them  the  rivals  of  the  most  eminent  Italian  improvisatori. 
With  such  entertainers  the  Turks  can  readily  forego  our 
more  elaborate  forms  of  amusement,  even  if  they  were 
available.* 

But  the  stories  and  drolleries  of  the  Medak — although 
always  a  perennial  source  of  pleasure — are  not  the  chief 
attractions  of  the  coffeehouse.  These  are  partly  supplied, 
as  Lowell  so  playfully  puts  it,  by 

The  kind  nymph  to  Bacchus  horn 
By  Morpheus'  daughter,  she  that  seems 
Gifted  on  her  natal  morn 
By  him  with  fire,  hy  her  with  dreams — 
Nicotia,  dearer  to  the  Muse 
Than  all  the  grapes'  bewildering  juice. 

Although  the  use  of  tobacco  was  long  forbidden  in  the 
Mohammedan  world  ^  and  although  its  lawfulness  is  still 

6  Sismondi,  writing  of  the  Eastern  story-tellers,  among  whom  are  women  as 
well  as  men,  informs  us  they  sometimes  "excite  terror  or  pity,  but  they  more 
frequently  picture  to  their  audience  those  brilliant  and  fantastic  visions  which 
are  the  patrimony  of  the  eastern  imagination.  .  .  .  The  physicians  fre- 
quently recommend  them  to  their  patients  in  order  to  soothe  pain,  to  calm 
agitation  or  to  produce  sleep  after  long  watchfulness;  and  these  story-tellers, 
accustomed  to  sickness,  modulate  their  voices,  soften  their  tones  and  gently 
suspend  them  as  sleep  steals  over  the  sufferers."  Historical  View  of  the 
Literature  of  Southern  Europe,  Vol.  I,  p.  62  ( Bohn  Edition ) . 

f  The  Sheik-ul-Islam  issued  a  vigorous  fetwa  against  it  in  which  he  de- 
clared that  its  use  "was  contrary  to  the  Koran"  and  that  "smoking  was  a 
hideous  and  abominable  practice  of  the  Giaours,  which  no  true  Believer  should 
adopt." 


IN  THE  FOOTSTEPS  OF  THE  CRUSADEES      179 

disputed  by  a  large  number  of  Moslems,  especially  the 
Wahabis,  the  ''scented  weed"  is  now  used  almost  univer- 
sally from  Morocco  to  Delhi  and  from  Stamboul  to  Mecca. 
It  is,  however,  well  for  the  Moslems  of  today  that  tobacco 
and  coffee  were  unknown  in  the  time  of  Mohammed,  as  he 
would  most  likely  have  put  them  under  the  same  ban  as 
intoxicating  liquors  and  games  of  chance. 

Nothing  more  perfectly  harmonizes  with  the  tempera- 
ment of  the  Oriental  than  the  smoking  habit,  and  it  is 
doubtless  this  practice  that  contributes  not  a  little  to  that 
remarkable  patience  and  that  wonderful  repose  which  so 
distinguishes  the  Turk  and  the  Arab  from  the  nervous  and 
overwrought  American  or  European.  An  Oriental  reclining 
on  his  cushioned  divan  with  his  bubbling  narghile  supplied 
with  the  rose-scented  tobacco  from  Shiraz  or  Salonica  is  a 
matchless  picture  of  contentment,  and  nothing  that  the 
hurry-scurry  West  can  offer  will  excite  his  envy  or  disturb 
his  peaceful  reverie. 

The  invariable  accompaniment  of  the  narghile  or  chibouk 
with  their  aromatic  and  sedative  narcotic  is  the  zarf,  with 
its  small  cup  of  foaming  black  coffee  made  from  the  prized 
Mocha  berries  of  Arabic  Felix.*  Only  in  the  East  is  this 
grateful  and  refreshing  beverage  properly  prepared."  Let 
those  who  doubt  this  statement  read  of  its  virtues  as  cele- 
brated by  the  Arabic  poet,  Abd-el-Kader  Anazari  Djezeri 
Hanbali.  Only  those  will  find  his  eulogy  a  wild  extrava- 
gance who  have  never  experienced  the  revivifying  effects 

8  "The  Eastern  nations  are  generally  so  addicted  to  both  that  they  Bay  'a 
dish  of  coffee  and  a  pipe  of  tobacco  are  a  complete  entertainment';  and  the 
Persians  have  a  proverb  that  coffee  without  tobacco  ia  meat  without  salt." 
Sale,  The  Koran,  p.  88,  "Preliminary  Discourse." 

»  "Most  people  who  have  travelled  in  the  Levant  are  enthusiastic  in  their 
praises  of  the  Turkish  coffee  which  they  drank  out  there.  There  is  no  reason 
why  coffee  prepared  in  the  Turkish  style  should  not  become  popular  here. 
There  is  no  diflBculty  about  making  it.  That  the  coffee  may  have  the  delicious 
flavor  it  has  in  the  Levant,  the  beans  must  be  freshly  roasted  and  ground  very 
fine.  The  water  must  be  boiled  in  a  tin  or  copper  coffee-pot.  To  supply,  say 
four  or  five  persons  with  coffee  in  tiny  cups,  two  or  three  teaspoonfula  of  the 
powder  should  be  put  into  the  pot  while  the  water  is  actually  boiling  tlierein. 
Some  people  do  not  like  sugar  in  their  coffee,  but  if  sugar  is  required,  it  should 
be  put  into  the  boiling  water  and  allowed  to  melt  before  the  coffee  is  added. 


180  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

of  the  dark  ambrosia  that  so  gladdens  the  Bedouin's  tent 
and  the  pasha 's  palace. 

0  Coffee!  thou  dispellest  the  cares  of  the  great;  thou 
bringest  back  those  who  wander  from  the  paths  of  knowl- 
edge. Coffee  is  the  beverage  of  the  people  of  God  and  the 
cordial  of  His  servants  who  thirst  for  wisdom.  When  coffee 
is  infused  into  the  bowl  it  exhales  the  odor  of  musk  and  is 
of  the  color  of  ink.  The  truth  is  not  known  except  to  the 
wise  who  drink  it  from  the  foaming  coffeecup.  God  has 
deprived  fools  of  coffee,  who,  with  invincible  obstinacy- 
condemn  it  as  injurious. 

Coffee  is  our  gold  and  in  the  place  of  its  libations  we  are 
in  the  enjoyment  of  the  best  and  noblest  society.  Coffee  is 
as  innocent  a  drink  as  the  purest  milk  from  which  it  is  dis- 
tinguished only  by  its  color.  Tarry  with  thy  coffee  in  the 
place  of  its  preparation  and  the  good  God  will  hover  over 
thee  and  participate  in  His  feast.  There  the  graces  of  the 
salon,  the  luxury  of  life,  the  society  of  friends,  all  furnish 
a  picture  of  the  abode  of  happiness. 

Every  care  vanishes  when  the  cup-bearer  presents  the 
delicious  chalice.  It  will  circulate  freely  through  thy  veins 
and  will  not  rankle  there.  If  thou  doubtest  this,  contem- 
plate the  youth  and  beauty  of  those  who  drink  it.  Grief 
cannot  exist  where  it  grows ;  sorrow  humbles  itself  in  obedi- 
ence before  its  powers. 

Coffee  is  the  drink  of  God's  people;  in  it  is  health.  Let 
this  be  the  answer  to  those  who  doubt  its  qualities.  In  it 
we  will  drown  our  adversities  and  in  its  fire  consume  our 
sorrows.  Whoever  has  once  seen  the  blissful  chalice  will 
scorn  the  wine-cup.  Glorious  drink !  Thy  color  is  the  seal 
of  purity  and  reason  proclaims  it  genuine.  Drink  with  con- 
Great  sweetness  is  not  appreciated  by  connoisseurs  in  coffee  drinking.  When 
the  ground  coflfee  is  added  to  the  boiling  water,  the  pot  should  be  taken  off 
the  fire  and  the  coffee  stirred  up  in  the  water  with  a  teaspoon.  Then  it 
should  be  put  on  the  fire  again  until  the  froth  rises  up.  It  is  then  poured 
into  the  cups.  It  is  better  to  pour  out  the  coffee  slowly,  placing  the  pot  on 
the  fire  at  short  intervals,  and  thus  getting  more  froth  for  pouring  out  into 
the  cups,  as  the  taste  of  the  coffee  is  supposed  to  be  better  with  the  yellowish 
froth  on  the  surface.  It  is  on  account  of  this  idea  that  greedy  people  in 
Turkey  choose  those  cups  that  have  the  most  froth  when  coffee  is  handed 
round  on  a  tray,  leaving  those  with  less  to  the  others  who  are  waiting  their 
turn  to  be  served."    Halil  Halid's  Diary  of  a  Turk,  p.  244  (London,  1903). 


IN  THE  FOOTSTEPS  OF  THE  CRUSADERS      181 

fidence  and  regard  not  the  prattle  of  fools  who  condemn 
without  foundation.^" 

So  much  for  the  oriental  coffeehouse  and  the  pleasure 
and  surcease  of  care  and  sorrow  which  it  offers  its  listless, 
dream-loving  habitues.  What  are  the  amusements  of  the 
women  of  the  Orient  ?  Let  the  distinguished  English  writer, 
Julia  Pardoe,  whose  knowledge  of  Turkish  life  and  man- 
ners was  not  surpassed  even  by  that  of  the  well-informed 
Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague,  give  a  reply  to  this  interest- 
ing but  ill-understood  question,  In  the  quotation  given  she 
is  writing  about  the  women  of  Constantinople,  but  what 
she  says  of  them  can,  ceteris  paribus,  be  asserted  of  their 
sisters  in  other  parts  of  the  Ottoman  Empire: 

It  is  a  great  fallacy  [she  declares]  to  imagine  that  Turk- 
ish females  are  like  birds  in  a  cage  or  captives  in  a  cell ; — 
far  from  it;  there  is  not  a  public  festival,  be  it  Turk,  Frank, 
Armenian  or  Greek,  where  they  are  not  to  be  seen  in  num- 
bers sitting  upon  their  carpets  or  in  their  carriages,  sur- 
rounded by  slaves  and  attendants,  eager  and  delighted  spec- 
tators of  the  revel.  Then  they  have  their  gilded  and  glit- 
tering caiques  on  the  Bosphorus,  where,  protected  by  their 
veils,  their  ample  mantles  and  their  negro  guard,  they  spend 
long  hours  in  passing  from  house  to  house,  visiting  their 
acquaintances  and  gathering  and  dispensing  the  gossip  of 
the  city- 
All  this  may  and  indeed  must  appear  startling  to  persons 

10  In  marked  contrast  to  this  wildly  lyrical  praise  of  the  fragrant  and 
delicious  beverage  made  from  the  Arabian  berry,  is  the  denunciation  which 
was  hurled  against  it  by  the  orthodox  followers  of  Islam  who  declared  it  to 
be  a  menace  to  public  morals  and  one  of  the  four  ministers  of  the  Devil — 
the  other  three  being  wine,  opium,  and  tobacco.  "During  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries  coffee-drinkers  were  persecuted  more  rigorously  in  Con- 
stantinople than  wine-bibbers  have  ever  been  in  England  or  America.  Their 
most  unrelenting  enemy  was  the  bloody  Murad  IV — himself  a  drunkard — who 
forbade  the  use  of  coffee  under  pain  of  death.  He  and  his  nephew,  Mehmed  IV, 
after  him  used  to  patrol  the  city  in  disguise,  k  la  Harun-al-Rashid,  in  order 
to  detect  and  punish  for  themselves  any  violation  of  the  law.  ...  A  per- 
sonage no  more  straitlaced  than  Charles  II  caused  a  court  to  hand  down  the 
following  decision:  'The  Retayling  of  Coffe  may  be  an  innocente  Trayde; 
but  as  it  is  used  to  nourisshe  Sedition,  spredde  Lyes,  and  scandalyse  Greate 
Mene,  it  may  also  be  a  common  Nuissaunce.' "  Constantinople  Old  and  New, 
p.  24  (by  H.  G,  Dwight,  New  York,  1915). 


182  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

who  have  accustomed  themselves  to  believe  that  Turkish 
wives  were  morally  manacled  slaves.  There  are,  probably, 
no  women  so  little  trammelled  in  the  world ;  so  free  to  come 
and  go  unquestioned,  provided  that  they  are  suitably 
attended,  while  it  is  equally  certain  that  they  enjoy  this 
privilege  like  innocent  and  happy  children,  making  their 
pleasures  of  the  flowers  and  the  sunshine  and  revelling,  like 
the  birds  and  bees  in  the  summer  brightness,  profiting  by 
the  enjoyment  of  the  passing  hour  and  reckless  or  thought- 
less of  the  future." 

Since  these  lines  were  written,  the  liberty  of  the  Turkish 
woman  has  been  greatly  extended,  as  have  also  her  oppor- 
tunities of  obtaining  a  higher  education,  which  were  so  long 
denied  her. 

From  the  foregoing  it  seems  that  the  peoples  of  the 
Orient — both  men  and  women — get  quite  as  much  pleasure 
out  of  life — ^in  their  own  way,  of  course — as  do  our  luxury- 
loving  people  of  the  Occident  at  the  expenditure  of  far 
greater  effort  and  wealth.  But  in  this,  as  in  other  things — 
every  one  to  his  taste.    De  gustihus  non  est  disputandum. 

But  much  as  one  may  be  interested  in  the  mosques  and 
medresses  and  the  customs  of  the  people  of  Konia,  the 
traveler  of  a  practical  turn  of  mind  will  find  more  to  engage 
his  attention  in  the  splendid  barrage  which  was  constructed 
about  a  decade  ago,  some  twenty  odd  miles  to  the  south- 
east of  the  city,  for  the  irrigation  of  the  broad  plain  of 
Konia.  It  is  the  work  of  a  German  company,  which,  by 
utilizing  the  waters  of  two  neighboring  lakes — the  Beushehr 
and  the  Sogla  Geul — ^has  enabled  its  enterprising  managers 
to  irrigate  nearly  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  acres  of 
valuable  land  which  would  otherwise  remain  arid  and  un- 
productive. It  is  notable  as  being  the  first  undertaking  of 
the  kind  in  Asia  Minor,  and  has  already  been  of  untold 
value  to  the  inhabitants  of  Konia  Plain.  The  success  of 
this  important  work  is  sure  to  lead  to  the  construction 

"TAe  Beauties  of  the  Bosphorua,  p.  127  (London,  1839). 


IN  THE  FOOTSTEPS  OF  THE  CRUSADERS      183 

of  similar  reservoirs  in  other  parts  of  Anatolia,  with  the 
happy  result  that  many  broad  stretches  of  this  long- 
neglected  and  deserted  country  will  eventually  be  restored 
to  their  former  fertility  and  populousness. 

Time  was,  as  history  informs  me,  when  Asia  Minor,  which 
has  long  been  presented  in  many  parts  by  pictures  of  utter 
barrenness  and  desolation,  was  one  of  the  most  fertile 
and  productive  and  flourishing  in  the  world.  It  was  from 
this  land,  as  DeCandolle  "  has  shown,  that  Europe  received 
many  of  its  most  important  fruits  and  cereals,  as  well 
as  many  of  its  most  valuable  shrubs  and  trees.  From  Asia 
Minor  came  the  peach,  the  plum,  the  cherry,  and  the  apricot, 
the  quince  and  the  mulberry,  and  probably  also  the  apple 
and  the  olive.  From  it  also  came  wheat,  barley,  oats  and 
lucerne  and  numerous  other  useful  cultivated  plants.  It 
was  doubtless  for  these  reasons  that  an  old  legend  located 
in  this  region  the  cradle  of  our  race. 

Before  leaving  Konia  it  may  be  noted  that  it  was  on  the 
route  of  the  Crusades  led  by  Godfrey  de  Bouillon  and 
Frederic  Barbarossa.  Godfrey's  forces  found  the  city 
abandoned  by  the  enemy,  but  the  army  of  Barbarossa  was 
forced  to  take  the  city  by  storm  and  compel  the  Sultan  to 
sue  for  peace. 

After  leaving  the  old  Seljukian  capital  we  found  little 
worthy  of  note  until  we  reached  the  famous  chain  of  the 
Taurus  Mountains.  For  a  great  part  of  the  distance  our 
train  passed  over  a  level  plain,  sparsely  populated.  Here 
and  there  were  small  villages  with  mud-built  houses  sur- 
rounded by  diminutive  tracts  of  land  under  cultivation, 
not  unlike  those  that  are  everywhere  visible  in  northern 
Mexico. 

What  impressed  us  here,  as  in  other  parts  of  Anatolia, 
was  the  paucity  of  its  inhabitants  and  their  total  failure 
to  utilize  the  marvelous  natural  resources  of  the  country. 


12  Cf.  hiB  Origin  of  Cultivated  Plants,  p.  439  et  acq.  (New  York;  Oiographie 
Botanique  Baiaonnie  (Paris,  1885). 


184  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Although  the  area  of  Asia  Minor  is  equal  to  that  of  France, 
its  population  is  but  one-fifth  of  that  of  the  French  Republic. 
And  yet  the  natural  resources  of  the  country  are  enormous, 
and  if  properly  conserved  would  suffice  to  support  several 
times  its  present  population.  Rich  in  valuable  minerals  of 
all  kinds,  its  untold  treasures  of  ore  are  left  unmined.  Its 
flora,  too,  is  as  varied  as  it  is  valuable.  The  oak,  for  in- 
stance, counts  more  varieties  here  than  in  any  other  part 
of  the  world.  Fifty-two  species  occur  in  Anatolia,  twenty- 
six  of  which  are  not  known  to  exist  elsewhere.  But  in  this 
part  of  the  world,  forestry  is  an  unknown  science.  Worse 
still.  Not  only  is  arboriculture  practically  unknown,  but 
thousands  of  valuable  trees  are  every  year  wantonly  de- 
stroyed. If  the  water,  mineral,  and  forest  resources  were 
properly  conserved  and  developed,  Asia  Minor  would  again 
be  as  it  was  in  the  long  ago — one  of  the  most  populous  and 
flourishing  regions  of  the  globe. 

No  country  perhaps  has  seen  such  a  succession  of  pros- 
perous states  and  had  such  a  host  of  historical  reminis- 
cences, under  such  distinct  eras  and  such  various  distribu- 
tions of  territory.  It  is  memorable  in  the  beginning  of 
history  for  its  barbarian  kings  and  nobles  whose  names 
stand  as  commonplaces  and  proverbs  of  wealth  and  luxury. 
The  magnificence  of  Pelops  imparts  lustre  even  to  the  bril- 
liant dreams  of  the  mythologist.  The  name  of  Croesus, 
King  of  Lydia  .  .  .  goes  as  a  proverb  for  his  enormous 
riches.  Midas,  King  of  Phrygia,  had  such  abundance  of 
the  precious  metals  that  he  was  said  by  the  poets  to  have 
the  power  of  turning  whatever  he  touched  into  gold.  The 
tomb  of  Mausolus,  King  of  Caria,  was  one  of  the  seven 
wonders  of  the  world .^' 

But  as  it  is  now,  this  country,  once  so  famed  for  its  wealth 
and  its  splendid  cities,  for  its  "powerful  and  opulent  king- 
doms, Greek  or  Barbarian,  of  Pontus  and  Bithynia  and 

'^^  Historical  Sketches,  Vol.  I,  p.  116,  117  (by  Cardinal  Newman,  London. 
1901). 


IN  THE  FOOTSTEPS  OF  THE  CEUSADERS   185 

Pergamus — Pergamus"  with  its  two  hundred  thousand 
choice  volumes" — is  so  poor  and  neglected  that  its  people 
frequently  suffer  from  famine  and  from  all  the  miseries 
consequent  on  improvidence  and  failure  to  utilize  the  vast 
treasures  within  their  reach.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
advent  of  the  railroad  and  the  introduction  of  irrigation 
and  the  promised  establishment  of  an  eflScient  forestry  will 
ere  long  materially  improve  the  present  sad  economic  con- 
dition of  the  country,  and  that  fair  Anatolia  will  once  more 
be  covered,  as  of  yore,  with  flourishing  marts  of  commerce 
and  magnificent  cities  where  there  are  now  crumbUng  col- 
umns of  Greek  temples  and  scattered  fragments  of  Roman 
palaces  and  amphitheaters — a  veritable  **  sepulchre  of 
the  past." 

The  plain  which  we  now  traversed  was  for  a  considerable 
distance  gravelly  land,  alternately  marshy  and  dry  and  not 
infrequently  very  saline.  Rocks  of  a  volcanic  character 
were  often  visible.  There  were  little  evidences  of  life  except 
here  and  there  long  droves  of  heavily  burdened  donkeys 
and  camels  and  occasional  flocks  and  herds  of  wandering 
Turkomans. 

Trains  of  camels  in  the  deserts  of  Asia  and  Africa  have 
always  had  a  peculiar  fascination  for  me.  Like  the  llama 
trains  of  the  Peruvian  and  Bolivian  Andes  they  seem  to  be 
specially  adapted  to  their  environment  and  to  the  work 
which  they  are  called  upon  to  perform.  Before  the  inven- 
tion of  the  steam  engine  both,  in  their  sphere,  were  all  but 

1*  Cf.  Discovery  in  Greek  Lands,  p.  57  et  seq.  (by  F.  H.  Marshall.  Cambridge, 
1920).  See  also  A  Century  of  Archaeological  Discoveries,  p.  166  ff.  (by  A. 
Michaelis,  New  York,  1908).  ,.      .         i. 

Nothing  impressed  us  more  during  our  journey  through  Anatolia  than  the 
utter  destruction  of  those  superb  cities  of  which  a  Roman  author  once  wrote, 

Magnificas  Asice  perreximus  urbes. 
Of  many  of  these  even  the  sites  were  unknown  until  they  were  recently  dis- 
covered by  the  archaeologists  of  Europe.  The  site  of  the  famous  temple  of 
Diana  at  Ephesus  was  not  identified  until  1869.  although  this  celebrated 
structure  was  once  classed  as  one  of  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world.  Nowhere 
in  Asia  Minor  does  one  find  anything  to  compare  with  the  stately  temples  of 
Psestum.  Girgenti,  and  Segesta  which,  with  the  exception  of  the  wonderful 
monuments  in  Athens,  are  the  most  remarkable  and  best  preserved  groups  of 
ancient  Greek  architecture  in  existence. 


186  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

indispensable — ^the  sure-footed  llama  on  dizzy  mountain 
heights,  the  thirst-resisting  camel  in  torrid,  interminable 
deserts.  Even  since  the  appearance  of  the  locomotive  these 
useful  animals  are  apparently  as  much  in  demand  as  ever. 
For,  in  addition  to  transporting  merchandise,  as  formerly, 
where  railroads  do  not  exist,  they  are  still  in  constant  use  in 
delivering  goods  to  such  roads  as  are  already  in  operation. 

In  the  region  of  which  I  am  now  speaking,  one,  at  times, 
sees  only  three  or  four  camels  at  most ;  at  others  there  are 
a  hundred  or  more,  all  loaded  to  the  limit  of  endurance.  But 
whenever  they  appear  in  the  gray,  barren,  undulating  plain, 
they,  with  their  drivers,  at  once  give  life  and  color  to  the 
landscape  which  is  else  but  a  dull  study  in  monochrome. 
Their  leader  is  usually  a  dirty,  unkempt,  diminutive  don- 
key— ^in  marked  contrast  to  the  stately  animals  that  sub- 
missively follow  him — ^which  is  frequently  bestridden  by  a 
somnolent  Turk  wearing  a  faded  old  fez  and  voluminous 
red  trousers,  with  his  legs  reaching  almost  to  the  ground. 
As  the  caravan  gradually  approaches  one  hears  the  jingling 
of  the  bells  of  the  light-stepping  donkey  and  the  clanging  of 
the  larger  bells  of  the  heavy,  lurching  camel.  But  we  also 
presently  discover  that  both  donkey  and  camels  are  decked 
with  gaudy  trappings  adorned  with  beads  and  cowrie  shells. 
These,  however,  are  not  solely  for  ornament,  as  one  might 
suppose,  but  rather  to  avert  the  evil  eye  which,  in  the  Near 
East,  is  even  more  dreaded  than  it  is  in  any  part  of  southern 
Italy. 

How  the  camel  carries  one  back  to  patriarchal  times,  to 
times  even  when  the  domesticated  horse  was  known  only 
in  warfare !  As  a  long  line  of  betasselled  camels  came  near 
our  train  one  day,  they  seemed  by  their  sneers  and  the  lofty 
manner  in  which  they  held  up  their  heads  to  be  conscious 
of  their  ancient  lineage  and  to  resent  the  trespassing  by  the 
Bagdad  Railway  on  what  was  long  their  exclusive  domain. 
But  to  judge  by  the  general  appearance  of  the  country — the 
old  patched  tents,  the  reed  huts,  the  hovels  of  unbaked  mud, 
the  peculiar  garb  of  the  people,  the  primitive  methods  of 


IN  THE  FOOTSTEPS  OF  THE  CRUSADEES   187 

agriculture,  the  simple  manners  and  customs  of  the  people — 
this  part  of  Anatolia,  notwithstanding  the  advent  of  the 
iron  horse,  is  in  almost  the  same  condition  as  it  was  when 
Joseph  and  his  brethren  tended  their  father's  flocks  in  the 
land  of  Canaan. 

If  this  part  of  Asia  Minor  was  as  arid  and  desolate  in  the 
days  of  Godfrey  de  Bouillon  and  Barbarossa — and  we  have 
no  reason  to  believe  it  was  materially  different — we  can 
easily  realize  what  must  have  been  the  trials  and  sufferings 
of  the  Crusaders  during  their  long  march  through  *' burning 
Phrygia"  and  inhospitable  Lycaonia.  Their  route  was 
through  a  dry,  sterile,  and  salty  desert,  a  land  of  tribulation 
and  horror."  It  was  then,  no  wonder  that,  in  view  of  the 
perils  and  sufferings  entailed  by  an  inland  expedition,  the 
later  Crusaders  preferred  to  make  the  journey  from  Europe 
to  the  Holy  Land  by  sea. 

Terror  [writes  Michaud]  opened  to  the  pilgrims  all  the 
passages  of  Mount  Taurus.  Throughout  their  triumphant 
march  the  Christians  had  nothing  to  dread  but  famine,  the 
heat  of  the  climate  and  the  badness  of  the  roads.  They  had 
particularly  much  to  suffer  in  crossing  a  mountain  situated 
between  Coxon  and  Marash  which  their  historians  denom- 
inate, "The  Mountain  of  the  Devil.'* " 

So  great,  indeed,  were  the  toils  and  dangers  and  disasters 
experienced  by  the  Crusaders  before  they  reached  the  Holy 
City  of  Jerusalem,  that  the  brilliant  French  historian  is 
moved  to  declare,  "If  great  national  remembrances  inspire 
us  with  the  same  enthusiasm,  if  we  entertain  as  strong  a 
respect  for  the  memory  of  our  ancestors,  the  Conquest  of 
the  Holy  Land  must  be  for  us  as  glorious  and  memorable 
an  epoch  as  the  war  of  Troy  was  for  the  people  of 
Greece.""    Again  he  avers,  "When  comparing  these  two 

18  The  region  through  which  they  marched  was  described  in  the  graphic 
language  of  an  old  chronicler  as  Terram  horroria  et  aalauginia,  terram  aicoam, 
aterilem,  inamcenam. 

■^oThe  History  of  the  Oruaadea,  Vol.  1,  p.  126  (New  York,  n.  d.). 

1?  Ibid.,  p.  257. 


188  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

memorable  wars  and  the  poetical  masterpieces  that  have 
celebrated  them,  we  cannot  but  think  the  subject  of  the 
Jerusalem  Delivered  is  more  wonderful  than  that  of 
the/^iad?/'" 

There  are  several  passes  through  the  Taurus,  but  by  far 
the  most  important  of  them  is  the  famous  one  long  known 
as  the  Pyl(B  Cilicice,  or  Cilician  Gates."  From  time  imme- 
morial this  celebrated  pass  has  been  the  gateway  between 
Syria  and  Asia  Minor,  between  southwestern  Asia  and 
southeastern  Europe.  Assyrians,  Hittites,  Persians,  Egyp- 
tians, Greeks,  Romans,  Byzantines,  Saracens,  Crusaders 
passed  through  them.  Asurbanipal,  Cyrus  the  Great,  and 
Sapor  I  led  their  armies  through  their  narrow  defiles. 
Cyrus  the  Younger  and  Xenophon  pushed  their  way  through 
them  on  their  way  to  fateful  Cunaxa.  Alexander,  Cicero, 
Harun-al-Rashid  led  their  armies  through  this  narrow 
passage.  It  was  also  traversed  by  St.  Paul,  by  hosts  of  the 
Crusaders  and  by  pilgrims  innumerable  from  the  earliest 
ages  of  the  Church. 

On  our  way  across  the  Taurus  we  followed  in  the  foot- 
steps of  Alexander  and  the  Crusaders  as  far  as  the  Vale 
of  Bozanti.  Here  the  Bagdad  Railway  diverges  slightly 
eastward  from  the  old  military  and  trade  route  which 
passes  through  the  Cilician  Gates.  As  we  preferred  to  fol- 
low the  old  historic  route  to  passing  through  nearly  eleven 
miles  of  railway  tunnels,  we  left  the  train  at  Bozanti  Khan 
and  proceeded  by  carriage  through  the  Cilician  Gates  to 
Tarsus. 

We  were  well  repaid  for  so  doing,  for  we  had,  in  conse- 
quence, one  of  the  most  delightful  mountain  drives  in  the 
world.  On  each  side  of  the  road  were  towering  heights 
clothed  with  forests  of  pine  and  other  evergreens,  while 
rising  far  above  these  was  the  sky-piercing  summit  of 

18  Ibid.,  p,  258. 

i»  Called  by  Cicero  Tauri-Pylce. 


IN  THE  FOOTSTEPS  OF  THE  CRUSADERS   189 

Bulgar  Dagh  covered  with  a  mantle  of  snow  of  dazzling 
whiteness.    Further  on  our  way 

The  pass  expands 
Its  strong  jaws,  the  abrupt  mountain  breaks, 
And  seems  with  its  accumulated  crags, 
To  overhang  the  world. 

And,  as  if  to  give  life  and  variety  to  the  majestic  scene, 
we  saw  circling  the  fantastic  peaks  and  hovering  above  the 
beetling  crags  in  quest  of  prey,  a  number  of  great  bare- 
necked vultures,  which  seemed  to  be  fully  as  large  as  the 
lammergeier  of  the  Alps  and  no  mean  rivals  of  the  condor 
of  the  Andes. 

The  narrow  gorge  known  as  the  Cilician  Gates  answers 
perfectly  to  Cicero's  appellation  of  PylaB-Tauri,  gateway  of 
the  Taurus.  And  it  corresponds  almost  equally  well  with 
Xenophon's  description  of  it  when  he  declares  it  '*but 
broad  enough  for  a  chariot  to  pass  with  great  diflS.culty." 
On  both  sides  of  the  mountain  torrent  which  rushes  along 
the  historic  roadway  are  lofty  and  almost  vertical  preci- 
pices that  could  easily  be  so  fortified  as  to  convert  it  into  a 
Thermopylae,  where  a  handful  of  men  could  hold  a  large 
army  at  bay.  It  was  indeed  by  fortressing  this  pass  that 
Mehemet  Ali  was  long  able,  in  defiance  of  the  power  of  the 
Turkish  Sultan,  to  retain  control  of  Syria. 

Shortly  after  emerging  from  the  Pylae  Ciliciae  we  catch 
our  first  view  of  the  famed  Cilician  Plain,  the  Cilicia  Cam- 
pestris,  which  occupies  so  large  a  page  in  the  history  of  this 
part  of  the  world.  Through  it  we  see  coursing  like  silver 
bands  the  distant  rivers  of  familiar  names — the  Sarus,  the 
Pyramus,  and  the  Cydnus.  The  road  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  pass  is  fringed  with  forests  of  pine  and  plane  trees, 
under  whose  outstretched  branches  flows  a  leaping,  laugh- 
ing, tuneful  stream  which  is  ever  making  the  same  gladsome 
music  as  it  did  when  St.  Paul  passed  this  way  bearing  the 
joyful  tidings  of  the  Gospel  to  the  receptive  peoples  of  Asia 
Minor.    But  as  we  near  the  plain  we  note  a  marked  change 


190  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

in  climate.  Vegetation  is  not  only  more  luxuriant  but  is 
almost  semi-tropical  in  character.  The  road  is  bordered 
with  laurel,  bay,  cedar,  evergreen  oak,  wild  fig,  and  wild 
olive.  There  are  thickets  of  myrtle  and  oleander  draped 
with  wild  vines  and  creepers,  which  greatly  enhance  the 
picturesqueness  of  the  enchanting  scene. 

It  was  along  this  road,  embowered  in  all  the  verdure  and 
bloom  of  a  semi-tropical  climate,  that  the  weary  and  foot- 
sore Crusaders  passed  after  their  long  and  toilsome  march 
through  the  burning  desert  of  Phrygia.  Now  that  they  had 
crossed  the  formidable  Taurus,  the  greatest  barrier  athwart 
their  long  line  of  march,  and  were  at  last  about  to  tread  the 
sacred  soil  of  the  Holy  Land,  we  can  easily  imagine  the  joy 
with  which  they  chanted  their  favorite  hymns,  the  enthusi- 
asm with  which  they  filled  the  air  with  their  war  cry,  Dieu 
le  veult.  Clad  in  polished  armor,  shining  brightly  in  the 
Syrian  sun,  and  exultantly  marching  under  their  great  ban- 
ners, they  form  a  magnificent  pageant,  worthy  of  the  chiv- 
alry of  the  Ages  of  Faith  and  of  the  noble  cause  in  which 
they  have  magnanimously  pledged  fortune  and  life.  And 
as  the  Christian  host  moves  onward  towards  its  goal,  **one 
pictures,  above  the  lines  of  steel,  the  English  leopards,  the 
lilies  of  France,  the  great  sable  eagle  of  the  Empire  and 
then  the  other  coats  of  the  great  houses  of  Europe — chev- 
rons and  f esses  and  pales" — ever  triumphantly  approach- 
ing the  Holy  City  until  at  last  they  are  privileged  to  *  *  plant 
above  the  Holy  Sepulchre  the  banner  with  the  five  potent 
crosses,  argent  and  or,  unearthly,  wonderful  as  should  be 
the  arms  of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem.** 

Still  following  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Crusaders  we 
finally,  after  the  most  delightful  of  drives,  arrived  at  the 
old  city  of  Tarsus,  the  birthplace  of  St.  Paul  the  Apostle. 
This  was  the  first  city  in  which  Baldwin  and  Bohemond  and 
the  Tancred  the  Brave  flew  their  colors  after  crossing  the 
Taurus.  We  had  followed  in  their  footsteps  a  great  part 
of  the  way  from  the  legend-wrapped  Bosphorus  to  the 
romantic  Cydnus — the  Cydnus  ki  which  Alexander  so  im- 


IN  THE  FOOTSTEPS  OF  THE  CRUSADERS   191 

prudently  bathed,  where  Cleopatra  met  Anthony  and  where 
legend  long  had  it  that  Barbarossa  lost  his  life.  But  the 
truth  of  history  bids  us  declare  that  this  great  German 
hero — in  whose  footsteps  we  had  so  closely  followed  from 
his  embarkation  on  the  f  ar-oif  Danube — perished  not  in  the 
waters  of  the  Cydnus  but  in  those  of  the  Calycadnus,  several 
score  miles  to  the  northwest  of  the  more  famed  Cilician 
stream.  It  was  then  in  the  Calycadnus — the  modern  Gieuk 
Gu — that  "perished  the  noblest  type  of  German  kingship, 
the  Kaiser  Redbeard,  of  whom  history  and  legend  have  so 
much  to  tell.*'  The  spot  where  he  met  his  fate  was  fabled 
to  have  been  indicated  long  ages  before  by  a  rock  near  the 
river 's  source,  which  was  said  to  bear  the  portentous  words 
Hie  hominum  maximus  perihit — ^here  shall  perish  the 
greatest  of  men. 

But  although  history  had  declared  that  the  heroic  Romis- 
cher  Kaiser  was  no  more,  his  admiring  subjects  knew  better. 
Like  Charlemagne,  Desmond  of  Kilmallock,  Sebastian  I  of 
Brazil,  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  and  other  worthies,^"  he  still 
lives,  but  has  retired  into  strict  seclusion  till,  in  the  fulness 
of  time,  **he  shall  come  again  full  twice  as  fair  and  rule 
over  his  people."  According  to  one  legend  the  monarch  is 
fast  asleep  in  the  castle  of  Bordenstein,  or  in  the  vaults 
of  the  old  palace  of  Kaiserslautern.  But  according  to  an- 
other legend,  he  is  held  by  enchanted  slumber  under  the 
Kyffhauser  mountain.    All,  however,  agree  that  he  sits 

Taciturn,  sombre,  sedate  and  grave, 

before  a  stone  table  *  *  through  which  his  fiery-red  beard  has 
grown  nearly  to  the  floor,  or  around  which  it  has  coiled 
itself  nearly  three  times."     Here,  like  King  Arthur,  of 

20  As  legend  has  it.  Charlemagne  sleeps  in  Odenberg,  in  Hesse,  where 
crowned  and  armed  and  girt  with  his  trusty  sword,  La  Joyetise,  he  awaits  the 
advent  of  Anti-Christ  when  he  will  awake  and  deliver  Christendom. 

Bonaparte,  it  is  supposed  in  certain  parts  of  France,  will  again  return  to 
restore  the  country  to  its  pristine  glory.  When  Louis  Napoleon  submitted  the 
plebiscite  to  the  countrymen,  many  gave  their  vote  under  the  impression  that 
it  was  in  support  of  his  famous  uncle. 


192  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

whom  it  is  written/ '  Arturus  rex  quondam  rexque  futurus," 
he  rests  until 

In  some  dark  day  when  Germany 

Haih  need  of  warriors  such  as  he, 

A  voice  to  iell  of  her  distress 

Shall  pierce  the  mountain's  deep  recess — 

Shall  ring  through  the  dim  vaults  and  scare 

The  spectral  ravens  round  his  chair, 

And  from  his  trance  the  sleeper  wake. 

The  solid  mountain  shall  dispart, 

The  granite  slab  in  splinters  start, 

(Responsive  to  those  accents  weird) 

And  loose  the  Kaiser's  shaggy  beard. 

Through  all  the  startled  air  shall  rise 

The  old  Teutonic  battle  cries; 

The  horns  of  war  that  once  could  stir 

The  wild  blood  of  the  Berserker, 

Shall  fling  their  blare  abroad,  and  then 

The  champion  of  his  own  Almain, 

Shall  Barbarossa  come  again. 


CHAPTER  IX 
IN  HISTORIC  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS 

Domes,  minarets,  their  spiry  heads  that  rear, 
Mocking  with  gaudy  hues  the  ruins  near; 
Dim  crumbling  colonnades  and  marble  walls, 
Rich  columns,  broken  statutes,  roofless  halls; 
Beauty,  deformity,  together  thrown, 
A  maze  of  ruins,  date,  design  unknown — 
Such  is  the  scene,  the  conquest  Time  hath  won. 

Nicolas  Michel. 

It  is  doubtful  whether,  in  any  part  of  the  world,  more 
history  has  been  condensed  in  less  area  than  in  the  pictur- 
esque region  formerly  called  Cilicia.  Roughly  speaking,  it 
comprised  the  triangle  bordered  by  the  Mediterranean  and 
the  lofty  ranges  of  the  Taurus  and  Amanus  Mountains.  Its 
rich  alluvial  plains,  watered  by  the  celebrated  Cydnus  and 
Pyramus,  Sarus,  and  Pinarus,  early  attracted  a  large  popu- 
lation, who  found  there  not  only  a  mild  and  serene  climate 
but  also  a  soil  that  yielded  in  rare  abundance  the  plants  and 
fruits  most  useful  to  their  sustenance  and  comfort.  But, 
although  the  economical  value  of  the  Cilician  Plain — called 
by  Strabo  Cilicia  Campestris — ^was  great,  it  was  rather  the 
political  and  military  importance  of  this  country  that  made 
it  the  prize  of  contending  nations  from  the  earliest  dawn 
of  history. 

In  the  days  when  Hittite  and  Assyrian  fiercely  contended 
for  universal  empire — long 

Ere  Rome  was  built  or  smiled  fair  Aihen's  charms 

it  was  the  highway  between  Asia  Minor  and  Mesopotamia. 
It  was  the  royal  road  between  Persia  and  Greece  on  which 
was  heard  the  martial  tread  of  the  armies  of  Xerxes,  Cyrus, 

193 


194  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

and  Alexander.  Rameses  II — the  Napoleon  of  Egypt — and 
Asurbanipal — the  Napoleon  of  Assyria — led  their  vic- 
torious hosts  along  this  road  and,  like  the  warriors  who  had 
preceded  them,  found  subsistence  for  their  men  in  the  fer- 
tile valleys  of  the  Pyramus  and  the  Cydnus.  It  was  also  a 
field  of  frequent  sanguinary  conflicts  during  the  days  of 
Pompey  and  Cicero,  of  Mark  Anthony  and  Zenobia,  the 
rarely  gifted  but  ill-fated  ** Queen  of  the  East."  It  was  a 
continued  arena  of  strife  during  protracted  wars  between 
the  Byzantine  Emperors  and  the  Sassanian  Kings,  be- 
tween the  Osmanlis  and  Timur  and  Jenghiz  Khan,  and,  in 
recent  times,  between  the  Sultan  of  Constantinople  and  his 
ambitious  and  rebellious  viceroy,  Ibrahim  Pasha  of  Egypt. 

Three  of  the  decisive  battles  of  the  world  war  were  fought 
on  the  Cilician  Plain.  It  was  on  the  banks  of  the  Pinarus 
that  Alexander  won  his  memorable  victory  over  Darius — 
a  victory  that  gave  the  irresistible  Macedonian  the  control 
of  the  vast  region  between  the  Mediterranean  and  the 
Euphrates  and  paved  the  way  for  the  brilliant  triumph  at 
Arbela,  which  made  him  the  master  of  the  world's  greatest 
continent.  It  was  here  that  more  than  five  hundred  years 
later  Septimus  Severus  crushed  his  rival  Pescennius  Niger, 
when  "the  troops  of  Europe  asserted  their  usual  ascendant 
over  the  effeminate  natives  of  Asia."  And  it  was  on  this 
same  historic  spot  that  Heraclius  defeated  Chosroes  and 
once  more,  in  a  most  signal  manner,  showed  the  superiority 
of  the  West  over  the  East. 

But  in  addition  to  its  celebrity  as  the  theater  of  contests 
for  world  supremacy,  Cilicia,  like  so  many  other  regions  we 
have  described  in  the  preceding  pages,  is  noted  as  a  field 
of  romance,  of  myths,  and  legends  innumerable. 

Among  the  strange  romances  that  still  await  the  pen  of 
novelist  and  historian  is  that  connected  with  the  extraordi- 
nary life  and  deeds  of  the  Turkoman  freebooter,  Kutchuk 
Ali  Uglu,  who  a  century  ago  had  his  stronghold  in  the  moun- 
tain fastnesses  near  Issus.  Here,  during  forty  years,  he 
openly  defied  the  authority  of  the  Porte  and  the  Great 


IN  HISTORIC  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS         195 

Powers  of  Europe.  With  the  audacity  of  a  Fra  Diavolo  and 
the  cruelty  and  relentlessness  of  a  Barbary  corsair  he  rav- 
aged the  surrounding  country  and  plundered  traveling 
merchants  and  the  grand  annual  caravan  of  pilgrims  from 
Constantinople  to  Mecca  whenever  they  came  within  his 
reach. 

I  am  not  [he  was  wont  to  say]  as  other  Darah  Beys  are- 
fellows  without  faith,  who  allow  their  men  to  stop  travellers 
on  the  King's  highway ;— I  am  content  with  what  God  sends 
me.  I  await.his  good  pleasure,  and— Alhumlillah—Qod  be 
praised— He  never  leaves  me  long  in  want  of  anything/ 

Among  some  of  the  most  daring  performances  of  this 
desperado  was  the  seizure  of  the  master  of  an  English  ves- 
sel with  a  part  of  its  crew,  who  were  cast  into  prison.  A 
large  ransom  was  demanded  for  their  release,  but  before 
this  was  forthcoming  all  but  one  perished.  Strange  as  it 
may  now  seem,  the  English  government  with  all  its  power 
was  never  able  to  obtain  any  satisfaction  for  this  atrocious 
act  of  violence. 

Shortly  afterwards,  the  dauntless  robber  took  possession 
of  a  richly  laden  French  merchantman — ^which,  through 
ignorance  of  the  locality,  came  too  near  his  fortress — and 
after  appropriating  its  cargo,  sank  the  vessel  and  sent  the 
captain  and  crew  to  the  French  Consul  at  Alexandretta. 
Protests  against  these  high-handed  proceedings  were  made 
by  all  the  consular  authorities  at  Aleppo,  but  without  avail. 
To  the  vigorous  remonstrance  of  the  Dutch  Consul,  Kutchuk 
Ali  coolly  and  blandly  replied : 

My  dear  Friend,  I  am  threatened  with  attacks  from  the 
four  quarters  of  the  earth ;  I  am  without  money ;  I  am  with- 
out means;  and  the  ever  watchful  providence  of  the 
Almighty  sends  me  a  vessel  laden  with  merchandise.  Say, 
would  you  not  in  my  place  lay  hold  of  it,  or  not? 

1  Larea  et  Penates  or  Oilicia  and  Its  Qovemora,  p.  79  (by  W.  B.  Barker, 
London,  1853). 


196  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

It  was  only  a  few  months  later  that  this  same  consul  was 
arrested  and  imprisoned  by  the  audacious  freebooter.  And, 
notwithstanding  the  cordial  friendship  which  had  long 
existed  between  the  two  men,  the  ruthless  marauder  did  not 
liberate  his  prisoner  until  he  had  extorted  from  him  a  very 
large  ransom. 

And  during  the  eight  months'  incarceration  of  the  hap- 
less consul,  Kutchuk  Ali — was  it  from  shame  for  ill-treating 
an  old  friend? — never  once  visited  his  hapless  victim  or 
admitted  him  to  his  presence.  But,  to  show  the  character 
of  this  singular  brigand,  he  did  not  fail,  through  his  lieuten- 
ant, to  send  to  his  prisoner  words  of  sympathy  and  con- 
solation. 

Tell  him  [the  captor  said]  that  unfortunately  my  coffers 
were  empty  when  fate  brought  him  into  this  territory ;  but 
let  him  not  despair,  God  is  great  and  mindful  of  us.  Such 
misfortunes  are  inseparable  from  the  fate  of  men  of  re- 
nown, and  from  the  lot  of  all  born  to  fill  high  stations.  Bid 
him  be  of  good  cheer ;  a  similar  doom  has  twice  been  mine, 
and  once  during  nine  months  in  the  condemned  cell  of 
Abdul  Rahman  Pasha;  but  I  never  despaired  of  God's 
mercy,  and  all  came  right  at  last, — Alia  Karim — God  ig 
bountiful.^ 

"When  one  is  told  that  Kutchuk  Ali,  during  his  forty  years 
of  a  desperado's  life,  never  had  more  than  two  hundred 
men,  and  frequently  a  far  less  number,  it  seems  incredible 
that  he  was  so  long  able  to  defy  not  only  the  Porte  but  even 
the  greatest  powers  of  Europe.  But  we  forget  that  the 
notorious  Calabian  bandit,  Fra  Diavolo,  during  the  same 
period  and  with  a  much  smaller  band  of  outlaws,  was  wan- 
tonly perpetrating  similar  atrocities  in  southern  Italy.  And 
it  was  only  a  few  generations  earlier  that  the  notorious 
Captain  Kidd  was  roving  the  high  seas  in  open  defiance  of 
the  naval  power  of  the  civilized  world. 


2  Barker,  op.  cit.,  p.  82. 


IN  HISTORIC  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS         197 

One  of  the  most  popular  legends  in  Cilicia  is  that  of  the 
Seven  Sleepers.  According  to  the  Christian  version  they 
were  seven  brothers  who  fell  asleep  in  a  cave  near  Ephesus 
during  the  persecution  of  the  Emperor  Decius,  and  did  not 
awake  until  the  time  of  Theodosius  II — ^nearly  two  hundred 
years  later.  The  Mohammedans,  however,  contend  that  the 
cave  in  which  this  preternatural  event  occurred  was  about 
ten  miles  northwest  of  Tarsus.  Because  of  the  prominence 
the  Prophet  gives  the  legend  in  the  Koran,  the  Cilician  cave 
has  become  among  the  Moslems  a  favorite  place  of  pilgrim- 
age. Mohammed  has,  however,  elaborated  the  story  by 
introducing  the  dog — Al  Rakim — of  the  Seven  Sleepers  and 
descanting  on  the  care  that  Allah  took  of  the  bodies  of  the 
sleepers  during  their  long,  miraculous  sleep.^ 

But  it.  is  in  classical  legend  and  myth  that  Cilicia  is 
specially  rich.  It  was  near  the  mouth  of  the  Pyramus, 
according  to  Homer,  that  Bellerophon,  after  his  fall  from 
Pegasus, 

Forsook  hy  heaven,  forsaking  humankind, 
Wide  o'er  the  Aleian  field  he  chose  to  stray , 
A  long,  forlorn,  uncomfortable  way. 

Mopsuestia,  which  was  formerly  one  of  the  largest  and 
most  flourishing  cities  of  Cilicia,  was  fabled  to  have  been 
founded  during  the  Trojan  war  by  Mopsus,  the  son  of 
Manto  and  Apollo,  while  Adana,  the  most  important  com- 
mercial center  on  the  Sarus  and  the  Bagdad  Railway,  owes 
its  name,  legend  has  it,  to  Adam,  its  fabulous  founder. 

A  notable  feature  of  the  history  of  Cilicia  is  the  number 
of  crowned  heads  who  died  or  found  their  last  resting  place 
within  its  borders.  Constantius,  the  son  of  Constantino, 
died  of  fever  at  Mopsucrene,  near  Tarsus,  while  marching 

8  The  legend  about  people  sleeping  preternatural  lengths  of  time  has  an 
honored  place  in  the  folklore  of  many  nations  in  both  the  East  and  the  West. 
We  have  already  noted  the  traditions  concerning  the  long  sleeps  of  Barbarossa, 
Charlemagne,  Napoleon,  and  other  distinguished  characters  But  many  other 
instances  might  be  enumerated  showing  the  prevalence  of  similar  tales  in 
many  lands  from  the  sleepers  of  Sardis,  mentioned  by  Aristotle,  to  Rip  Van 
Winkle,  immortalized  by  Washington  Irving. 


198  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

against  his  nephew  and  rival,  Julian  the  Apostate.  It  was 
to  Tarsus  that  the  embalmed  body  of  the  Apostate  Em- 
peror, who  had  been  transfixed  by  a  Persian  javelin  beyond 
the  Tigris,  was  brought  for  burial.  It  was  in  Tarsus  that 
Maximinus,  the  last  of  the  great  persecutors  of  the  Church, 
preceding  Constantino  the  Great,  died  in  the  greatest  agony 
of  a  frightful  disease-ir-a  visitation,  according  to  many,  for 
his  barbarous  persecutions  of  the  Christians  and  for  his 
horrible  blasphemies  against  their  Lord  and  Savior.  It 
was,  we  are  informed  by  Strabo,  at  Anchiale,  the  port  of 
Tarsus,  where  were  entombed  the  mortal  remains  of  the 
celebrated  Assyrian  ruler  known  to  the  Greeks  as  Sarda- 
napalus.  On  his  monument  was  a  stone  statue  beneath 
which  was  the  famous  epitaph — attributed  to  the  Assyrian 
monarch  himself — ^which,  as  rendered  by  Byron  in  his 
tragedy  "Sardanapalus,"  ran: 

Sardanapalus, 
The  King  and  son  of  Ancyndaraxes 
In  one  day  huilt  Anchiale  and  Tarsus. 
Eat,  drink  and  love;  the  rest's  not  worth  a  fillip* 

Asurbanipal,  according  to  this  inscription  which  was  sup- 
posed to  express  in  a  few  words  the  guiding  principles  of 
this  life,  evidently  belonged  to  that  class  of  Europeans  who 
are  seemingly  becoming  daily  more  numerous  of  whom  the 
poet  speaks  in  the  words : 

Esse  aliquos  manes  et  suhterranea  regna 
Vix  pueri  credunt.^ 

The  population  of  Cilicia,  as  might  be  expected  from  its 
having  been  from  time  immemorial  the  great  arena  of  the 
nations  of  the  Orient  and  the  Occident,  has  always  been  of 

*Cf.  strabo,  XIV,  5;  and  Arrian's  Anabasis  of  Alexander,  II,  5.  For  an 
account  of  Asurbanipal,  in  the  light  of  recent  Assyrian  discoveries,  see  Graven 
in  the  Rock,  Chap.  XIV  (by  S.  Kinns,  London,  1891). 

"  Talk  of  our  souls  and  realms  beyond  the  grave. 
The  very  boys  will  laugh  and  say  you  rave. 


IN  HISTORIC  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS         199 

the  most  cosmopolitan  character.  In  ancient  times  Medes 
and  Persians,  Assyrians  and  Babylonians,  Scythians  and 
Hittites  foregathered  here,  sometimes  bent  on  the  purpose 
of  commerce  but  more  frequently  on  the  prosecution  of  war 
and  conquest.  To-day  we  find  here  Syrians  and  Arabians, 
Greeks  and  Armenians,  Kurds  and  Ansaryii,  Turkomans 
and  Osmanlis,  and  representatives  from  divers  parts  of 
Africa  and  Europe.  "Was  it  this  heterogeneous  character 
of  the  Cilieians  which  gave  rise  to  their  widespread  repu- 
tation for  perfidy  and  untruthfulness  and  that  led  to  the 
proverb  Cilix  Jiaud  facile  verum  dicetf 

Knowing  the  complex  character  of  its  inhabitants,  one  is 
not  surprised  to  learn  that  the  gods  and  idols  of  the  Cili- 
eians were  as  manifold  as  the  people  themselves  and  that 
their  worship  exhibited  all  the  promiscuity  of  the  divers 
nations  from  whence  they  came.  Baal  and  Astarte,  Isis, 
Ishtar,  and  Osiris  had  their  altars  alongside  those  of  Mars 
and  Mercury,  Zeus  and  Aphrodite.  There  was,  indeed,  a 
time — just  before  the  advent  of  the  world's  Redeemer — 
when  it  could  be  said  that  Tarsus,  the  capital  of  Cilicia, 
was,  in  very  truth,  the  pantheon  of  paganism. 

During  the  zenith  of  its  glory,  Cilicia  was  one  of  the  most 
densely  populated  countries  in  the  world.  But  it  has  long 
since  so  fallen  from  its  high  estate  that,  like  the  lands  of 
the  Nile  and  the  Euphrates,  it  is  a  region  of  ruins.  So  great 
indeed  have  been  the  ravages  of  time  and  warring  mortals 
that  **  ruins  of  cities,  evidently  of  an  age  after  Alexander, 
yet  barely  named  in  history,  at  this  day,  astonish  the  adven- 
turous traveler  by  their  magnificence  and  elegance." " 

Mopsuestia,  which  once  counted  two  hundred  thousand 
inhabitants,  was  an  archbishopric  and  for  a  time  the  capital 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Lesser  Armenia,  now  numbers  less  than 
a  thousand.  Anazarbas,  which  was  the  home  of  the  poet 
Oppian  and  Dioscorides  who,  **  during  fifteen  centuries  was 
an  undisputed  authority  in  botany  and  materia  medica,  has 


fi  History  of  Greeoe,  Vol.  X,  p.  311  (by  W.  Mitfprd,  London,  1810). 


200  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

long  since  been  level  with  the  ground. "  Nor  is  this  all.  Of 
many  places  mentioned  by  Cicero,  when  he  was  proconsul 
of  Cilicia,  even  the  sites  are  unknown. 

Because  of  the  strong  appeal  made  by  its  legendary  and 
historic  lore  we  lingered  longer  in  Tarsus  than  in  any  other 
spot  in  the  Cilician  plain.  Like  many  other  places  we  vis- 
ited during  our  journey,  Tarsus  is  as  rich  in  myth  and 
legend  as  it  is  in  literary  and  historical  associations. 
According  to  one  myth.  Tarsus  was  founded  by  Perseus, 
the  son  of  Jupiter  and  Danae,  while  on  his  fabled  expedition 
against  the  Gorgons.  Another  has  it  that  the  city  was  so 
named  because  Pegasus,  the  winged  horse  of  Olympus, 
dropped  there  one  of  his  pinions.'^  Josephus,  however, 
identifies  it  with  the  Tarshish  of  the  Old  Testament,  whence 
the  ships  of  Hiram  and  Solomon  brought  their  treasures  of 
tin,  silver,  and  gold.® 

From  an  inscription  on  the  Black  Obelisk  of  Salmanasar 
II,  we  learn  that  Tarsus  was  captured  by  the  Assyrians 
under  Salmanasar  about  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century, 
B.  C.  It  was  thus  in  existence  several  centuries  before  the 
mythical  Romulus  and  Remus  erected  on  the  Capitoline 
their  sanctuary  for  homicides  and  runaway  slaves,  and  its 
foundation  was  probably  laid  before  the  legendary  intro- 
duction into  Greece  of  the  Phoenician  alphabet  by  Cadmus 
when  he  went  in  quest  of  Europa. 

Centuries  passed  by  and  Tarsus  became  a  great  and 
flourishing  center  of  commerce  and  literary  activity.  "While 
Paris — La  Ville  Lumiere — ^was  as  yet  only  a  collection  of 
mud  huts  on  a  little  island  in  the  Seine,  inhabited  by  the 
Gallic  Parisii,  and  London  was  but  * '  a  thick  wood  fortified 
with  a  ditch  and  rampart"®  and  occupied  by  half -savage, 

7  The.  Greek  word  for  pinion  is  tarsos. 

8  Cf.  Josephus,  Antiquities  of  the  Jews,  I.  6 ;  VIII.  7.  2.  The  Jewish  his- 
torian was  probably  misled  by  the  similarity  of  sounds  of  the  two  words  and 
ventured  to  solve  what  has  always  been  a  riddle  to  historians  and  Scripture 
commentators. 

»"Oppidum  autem  Britanni  vocant,"  says  Csesar,  referring  to  the  capital 
of  Cassivellaunus,  now  London,  "cum  sylvaa  impeditas  vallo  atque  fossa 
munierunt,  quo  incursiones  hostium  vitandse  causa  convenire  consuerunt." 
De  Bello  Qallico,  Lib.  V,  Cap.  21. 


IN  HISTOEIC  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS         201 

woad-stained  Britons,  Tarsus  ranked  as  a  center  of  Greek 
thought  and  knowledge  with  the  world-famed  cities,  Athens 
and  Alexandria."'''  Its  schools  and  lecture  rooms  were  fre- 
quented by  vast  numbers  of  students  from  far  and  near, 
while  its  agora  and  gymnasium,  as  in  Athens  in  the  days  of 
Socrates,  drew  large  concourses  of  people,  young  and  old, 
who  assembled  to  discuss  not  only  the  current  news  of  the 
day,  but  also  questions  of  literature,  science,  and  philosophy. 

Although  famed  throughout  the  Eoman  Empire  as  a 
civitas  libera  et  mimunis — a  capital  and  a  free  city — and  as 
a  great  emporium  of  eastern  trade,  its  proudest  boast  was 
that  it  was  a  city  of  schools  and  scholars.  Here  were  found 
poets  and  orators  of  marked  eminence.  Here  were  philoso- 
phers of  many  schools,  Stoics  and  Peripatetics,  Platonists 
and  Epicureans — all  with  their  enthusiastic  followers  and 
all  seriously  discussing  the  same  problems  which  have 
engaged  the  attention  of  thoughtful  men  from  their  time 
to  our  own. 

In  the  long  list  of  men  produced  by  Tarsus,  or  who  added 
luster  to  its  name  as  teacher  of  students,  were  the  two 
Athenodori,  one  of  whom  had  been  the  tutor  of  Julius  CsBsar 
and  the  other  the  friend  of  Cato  and  the  instructor  of 
Augustus.  These  were  Stoics.  Among  the  Academicians 
was  Nestor,  who  was  the  preceptor  of  Marcellus,  the  son  of 
Octavia,  sister  of  Augustus.  Other  eminent  men  of  Tarsus, 
mentioned  by  Strabo,  were  the  philosophers,  Archimedes 
and  Antipater,  the  latter  of  whom  was  highly  praised  by 
Cicero,  and  who,  next  to  Zeno,  was  considered  as  the  most 
eminent  of  the  Stoics.  There  were  also  Strabo,  the  great 
geographer,  the  grammarians  Diodorus  and  Artemidorus, 
and  the  poets  Dionysides  and  Aratus,  from  whose  poem, 
**PhaBnomena,"  St.  Paul  quoted  the  pregnant  words,  **For 
we  too  are  His  offspring,"  in  his  epochal  address  to  the 
Athenians  on  the  Areopagus. 

According  to  Strabo,  Rome  was  full  of  learned  men  from 
Tarsus,  in  whose  schools,  as  has  been  well  said,  was  taught 

10  strabo,  Oeography,  XIV,  51. 


202  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

in  its  completeness  the  whole  circle  of  instruction,  the 
systematic  course  from  which  we  get  our  word  ''ency- 
clopaedia."" 

But  the  flowering  of  so  many  ages  of  preparation  in 
philosophy  and  religion  was  the  great  "Apostle  of  the  Gen- 
tiles." The  selection  of  his  birthplace  seems  to  have  been 
providential.  Sir  William  Ramsay  is  so  convinced  of  this 
that  he  writes  ' '  that  it  was  the  one  suitable  place  that  has 
been  borne  in  on  the  present  writer  during  long  study  of 
the  conditions  of  society  and  geographical  environment 
of  the  Cilician  lands  and  cities.  ...  Its  peculiar  suitability 
to  educate  and  mould  the  mind  of  him  who  should  in  due 
time  make  the  religion  of  the  Jewish  race  intelligible  to  the 
GrsBco-Roman  world,  and  raise  that  world  up  to  the  moral 
level  of  the  Hebrew  people  and  the  spiritual  level  of  ability 
to  sympathize  with  the  Hebrew  religion  in  its  perfected 
stage,  lay  in  the  fact  that  Tarsus  was  the  city  whose  institu- 
tions best  and  most  completely  united  the  oriental  and  the 
western  character.  .  .  .  Not  that  even  in  Tarsus  the  union 
was  perfect ;  that  was  impossible  so  long  as  the  religion  of 
the  two  elements  were  inharmonious  and  mutually  hostile. 
But  the  Tarsian  state  was  more  successful  than  any  of  the 
other  of  the  great  cities  of  that  time  in  producing  an  amal- 
gamated society,  in  which  the  oriental  and  the  occidental 
spirit  in  union  attained  in  some  degree  to  a  higher  plain  of 
thought  and  action.  In  others  the  Greek  spirit,  which  was 
always  anti-Semitic,  was  too  strong  and  too  resolutely  bent 
on  attaining  supremacy  and  crushing  out  all  opposition.  In 
Tarsus  the  Greek  qualities  and  powers  were  used  and 
guided  by  a  society  which  was  on  the  whole  more  Asiatic 
in  character. '  *  ^^ 

In  Tarsus  the  future  apostle  came  into  close  contact  with 
the  greatest  teachers  and  scholars  of  his  time,  and  was  thus 
prepared  to  enter  the  intellectual  arena  with  the  keenest 
minds  of  Greece  and  Rome.    Being,  as  he  could  proudly 

11  J.  B.  Lightfoot  in  Philippians,  Appendix  on  St.  Paul  and  Seneca,  p.  271. 

12  The  Cities  of  St.  Paul,  Their  Influence  on  His  Life  and  Thought,  pp.  88,  89 
(London,  1907). 


IN  HISTORIC  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS         203 

boast,  "a  Roman  of  no  mean  city,"  as  well  as  a  disciple  of 
Gamaliel,  one  of  tlie  seven  wise  men  of  the  Jews,  he  was 
peculiarly  fitted  to  preach  the  truths  of  the  Gospel  not  only 
to  his  own  people  but  also  to  the  much  greater  world  of  the 
Gentiles. 

Never  was  a  more  important  or  a  more  far-reaching  mis- 
sion entrusted  to  mortal  man.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  no  one  of  his  time  was  better  equipped  for  it  than  the 
tent  maker  of  Tarsus.  Wherever  he  could  secure  a  hear- 
ing for  his  marvelous  message  he  was  sure  to  go — to  the 
synagogue,  to  the  agora,  to  the  courts  of  governors  and 
consuls.  Learned  in  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  he  was  a 
match  for  the  ablest  teachers  of  Israel.  Familiar  with  the 
literature  and  philosophy  of  the  pagan  world,  he  spoke  as 
one  having  authority  before  the  ' '  Men  of  Athens ' '  and  the 
representatives  of  the  Ceesars.  Thanks  to  the  opportunities 
which  he  enjoyed  in  his  youth  of  associating  with  the  wise 
and  learned  men  of  Tarsus  and  to  his  thorough  acquaint- 
ance with  the  highest  forms  of  Greek  culture,  he  was  able, 
through  his  quick  intelligence  and  his  ardent  love  of  souls, 
"to  recognize  and  sympathize  with  the  strivings  of  those 
who,  living  in  the  times  of  ignorance,  were  yet  seeking  after 
God,  'if  haply  they  might  feel  after  Him  and  find  Him,'  and 
to  read  in  their  aspirations  after  a  higher  life  the  work  of 
the  law  written  in  the  hearts  of  all  men." ^^ 

As  one  wanders  through  the  narrow  and  squalid  streets 
of  modern  Tarsus — a  city  of  less  than  twenty  thousand 
inhabitants — one  finds  no  vestige  whatever  of  its  former 
splendor.  But  few  ruins  remain,  the  most  conspicuous  of 
which  is  the  concrete  foundation  of  a  Roman  structure 
popularly  regarded  as  the  tomb  of  the  cynical  voluptuary, 
Sardanapalus.  No  tradition  indicates  the  house  of  the 
Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  or  points  to  any  church  dedicated 
to  his  memory.  The  banks  of  the  silt-filled  Cydnus  are 
lonely  and  desolate.  Owing  to  the  neglected  condition  of 
the  river  channel,  no  white-winged  ships  are  here  visible, 

18  The  Heathen  World  and  8t.  Paul,  p.  20  (by  E.  H.  Plumptre,  London,  n.d.). 


204  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAU  AND  BABYLON 

as  of  yore,  laden  with  the  treasures  of  foreign  lands.  And 
yet  it  was  up  this  now  abandoned  stream  that  Cleopatra 
sailed  in  her  gorgeous  barge  when  she  came  to  answer  the 
challenge  of  Mark  Anthony.  How,  by  her  surpassing 
address,  she  led  captive  the  great  triumvir  is  admirably 
described  by  Shakespeare,  who,  following  Plutarch,  paints 
the  famous  picture  of  her  entrance  into  Tarsus,  which  was 
then  in  the  dazzling  splendor  of  oriental  magnificence : 

The  barge  she  sat  in,  like  a  hurnisht  throne. 

Burnt  on  the  water;  the  poop  was  beaten  gold. 

Purple  the  sails  and  so  perfumed  that 

The  winds  were  love-sick. 

With  them  the  oars  were  silver. 

Which  to  the  tune  of  flutes  kept  stroke 

And  made  the  water  which  they  beat,  to  follow  faster, 

'As  amorous  of  their  strokes.    For  her  own  person 

It  beggared  all  description,  she  did  lie 

In  her  pavilion,  cloth  of  gold,  of  tissue, 

O'erpicturing  that  Venus,  where  we  see 

The  fancy  outwork  nature.    On  each  side  her 

Stood  pretty  dimpled  boys,  like  smiling  Cupids, 

With  divers-colored  fans  whose  wind  did  seem, 

To  glow  the  delicate  cheeks  which  they  did  cool, 

And  what  they  undid  did. 

The  old  capital  of  Cilicia  is,  of  truth,  a  city  of  a  wonder- 
ful historic  past.  But  among  all  her  proud  memories 
those  which  have  made  her  best  known  throughout  the  ages 
and  which  will  endure  the  longest  are  not  those  of  her 
abounding  wealth  and  luxury,  her  superb  monuments  and 
palaces  and  temples,  long  in  ruins ;  not  those  that  clustered 
around  her  poets  and  philosophers  and  made  her  a  favored 
sanctuary  of  the  Muses ;  not  those  of  her  schools  and  gym- 
nasia and  her  one-time  eminence  as  the  rival  of  Athens  and 
Alexandria  as  the  home  of  learning  and  culture ;  not  those 
of  Persian  satraps  and  Roman  proconsuls  who  here  lived 
as  the  famed  representatives  of  imperial  authority;  not 
those  awakened  by  the  presence  within  her  gates  of  an 
Asurbanipal,  an  Alexander,  or  a  Cicero ;  not  those  associ- 


IN  HISTORIC  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS         205 

ated  with  the  love-enmeshed  Mark  Anthony  and  the  fateful 
' '  Siren  of  the  Nile, ' '  who  both  perished  the  ignoble  victims 
of  a  debasing  passion  and  a  foiled  ambition.  No;  that 
which  has  rendered  her  immortal  is  that  she  was  the  birth- 
place qf  a  poor  tent  maker  who  was  disowned  by  his  own 
family  because  he  became  the  bond  servant  of  the  Crucified, 
to  whom  he  bore  witness  from  Jerusalem  to  Rome ;  of  one 
who,  while  preaching  the  good  tidings  of  the  Gospel,  toiled 
night  and  day  lest  he  should  "be  chargeable  to  any  one'*; 
one  who,  while  preaching  the  Kingdom  of  God,  was  accused 
by  the  Thessalonian  Jews  of  "turning  the  world  upside 
down";"  one  who,  during  his  long  and  fruitful  apostolate 
and  his  almost  superhuman  labors  in  the  service  of  his 
Master,  gloried  in  persecution  and  was  the  frequent  victim 
of  stripes  and  chains  and  imprisonment ;  one  who  was  the 
fearless  teacher  and  the  strong  supporter  of  the  infant 
Church,  and  whose  matchless  Epistles  have,  during  nine- 
teen centuries,  been  the  guide  of  doctors  and  professors; 
one  who  wrote  his  own  epitaph  when  he  declared  "To  me 
to  live  is  Christ,  and  to  die  is  gain,"  and  who,  in  the  capital 
of  the  Caesars,  won  an  Apostle's  exceeding  great  reward — 
a  martyr 's  crown ;  one  whom  his  contemporaries  knew  as 
Saul,  otherwise  Paul,^"  of  Tarsus. 

While  in  Cilicia  I  made  a  special  effort  to  ascertain  the 
truth  regarding  the  Armenian  massacre  that  so  stirred 
Europe  and  America  to  horror  in  1909.  I  had  long  been 
convinced  that  most  of  the  reports  circulated  respecting 
Turkish  atrocities  in  Cilicia,  like  the  reports  disseminated 
throughout  the  world  regarding  other  similar  atrocities  so 


^*  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  xvii;   6.  »         t     » 

18  In  one  of  his  beautiful  homilies  on  the  Epistle  of  8t.  Paul  to  the  Romans, 
St.  John  Chrysostom,  the  greatest  of  pulpit  orators,  declares:  "I  honor  Rome 
for  this  reason;  for,  though  I  could  celebrate  her  praises  on  many  other  ac- 
counts;—for  her  greatness,  for  her  beauty,  for  her  power,  for  her  wealth,  for 
her  warlike  exploits,  yet,  passing  over  all  these  things.  I  glorify  her  for  this 
reason,  that  St  Paul  in  his  lifetime  wrote  to  the  Romans,  and  loved  them,  and 
was  present  among  them  and  conversed  with  them,  and  ended  his  I'^e  among 
them  Wherefore  the  city  is  on  this  account  renowned  more  than  all  others; 
on  this  account  I  admire^er,  not  on  account  of  her  gold,  her  columns  or  her 
o?hersplend"d  decorations."  Oeuvres  CompUtes  de  Saint  Jean  Chrysostome. 
Tom  XVI,  p.  308  (Paris,  1871). 


206  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

frequently  ascribed  to  the  Turks,  were  ex  'parte  accounts 
of  what  had  actually  occurred  and  that  most,  if  not  all,  of 
them  were  greatly  exaggerated.  And  recalling  the  activi- 
ties since  1885  of  Armenian  revolutionists,  many  of  them 
inspired  by  Russian  Nihilist  propaganda,  the  conviction 
grew  that  in  probably  the  majority  of  massacres  in  Asia 
Minor,  as  well  as  in  that  of  Constantinople  in  1896,  "the 
Armenian  revolutionaries,  by  their  riotous  action,  had  put 
themselves  and  their  innocent  countrymen  outside  the  law." 
As  the  result  of  my  investigations  I  am  now  satisfied  that 
my  previous  views  were  not  without  foundation. 

The  massacre  in  Cilicia — organized,  it  was  averred,  by 
the  Moslem  Jews  of  Salonica — surpassed  in  frightfulness 
any  that  had  taken  place  during  Abdul-Hamid 's  long  and 
troubled  reign.  When,  therefore,  one  understands  the 
origin  of  the  Cilician  massacre,  one  may  safely  conjecture 
the  cause  of  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  others  in  Turkey  which 
have  so  shocked  the  world  during  the  last  four  decades. 

But,  in  a  matter  of  such  import  as  the  one  under  con- 
sideration, I  prefer  to  give  the  views  of  those  who  visited 
Cilicia  when  the  terrors  of  the  great  massacre  in  Adana 
were  still  fresh  in  the  memory  of  everyone,  or  who  by  long 
residence  in  Armenia  are  well  acquainted  with  its  people 
and  are  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  measures  to  which 
Armenians  resort  in  order  to  achieve  their  independence 
of  the  Ottoman  Empire. 

Many  influences  [writes  an  English  traveler  ,who  had 
exceptional  opportunities  for  studying  the  question  and 
who  is  well  disposed  towards  the  Armenians]  went  to  the 
making  of  the  (Cilician)  massacre,  some  more  or  less, 
obscure,  as  the  part  taken  in  planning  it  by  the  Turkish 
Jews  of  Salonika  and  others  belonging  to  the  deeper  causes 
of  faith  and  race  which  ever  underlie  these  horrible  affairs. 
But  some  were  local  and  exhibited  the  inconceivable  unwis- 
dom which  Armenians  so  often  display  in  their  larger  deal- 
ings with  Moslems. 


IN  HISTORIC  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS         207 

Cilicia  [known  during  the  Crusades  as  Lesser  Armenia] 
is  a  district  closely  connected  with  Armenian  history  and 
independence;  and  here,  in  the  sudden  period  of  liberty 
which  followed  the  downfall  of  Abdul-Hamid,  Armenians 
gave  unrestrained  vent  to  their  aspirations.  Their  clubs 
and  meeting-places  were  loud  with  boastings  of  what  was 
soon  to  follow.  Post  cards  were  printed  showing  a  map 
of  the  future  Armenian  kingdom  of  Cilicia  and  circulated 
through  the  Ottoman  post.  Armenian  nationalists  marched 
in  procession  in  the  streets  bearing  flags  purporting  to  be 
the  flag  of  Lesser  Armenia  come  to  life  again.  The  name 
of  the  future  king  was  bandied  about,  no  aloof  nebulous 
personage,  but,  it  is  said,  a  well-known  Armenian  land 
owner  of  the  Cilician  plain,  held  in  peculiar  disfavor  by  the 
Moslems.  Giving  a  fuller  meaning  to  these  matters  was 
the  steady  assertion  that  an  Armenian  army  gathering  in 
the  mountains  by  Hajin  and  Zeitun — an  army  of  rumor  like 
the  legendary  Royalist  Army  of  Jales  which  terrorized 
revolutionary  France — ^would  presently  march  upon  Adana 
and  set  up  an  Armenian  kingdom  again. 

Sober  Armenians  of  Cilicia  tell  you  now  that  these  pro- 
ceedings were  folly,  the  work  of  revolutionary  societies  and 
hot-heads  and  that  the  mass  of  the  Armenian  population 
held  aloof.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  movement 
was  approved  and  supported  by  many,  and  intended  to 
involve  the  whole  race ;  that  it  had  in  fact,  got  beyond  the 
control  both  of  those  who  desired  to  go  more  slowly  and 
those  who  disapproved  of  it  altogether.^^ 

What  is  here  said  of  the  hot-brained  revolutionaries  of 
Lesser  Armenia  can  with  even  greater  truth  be  affirmed 
of  their  seditious  compatriots  of  Greater  Armenia.  For 
those  who  know  them  best  do  not  hesitate  to  declare  that 
their  lurid  accounts  of  frequent  and  inevitably  recurrent 
atrocities  in  certain  parts  of  Asia  Minor  are  to  be  inter- 
preted in  the  same  way  as  those  which  were  first  published 


18  ^oro««  Asia  Minor  on  Foot,  pp.  35,  351    (by  W.  J.  Childs,  New  York, 
1917). 


208  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

regarding  the  horrors  of  Adana  and  other  towns  of  Cilicia 
in  1909,  and  of  Constantinople  in  1896/^  We  get  only  one- 
sided reports  respecting  them,  which  reports,  if  not  glar- 
ingly exaggerated,  are  in  nearly  all  instances  in  severest 
condemnation  of  the  "bloodthirsty"  Turk. 

No  one  probably  has  a  more  accurate  knowledge  of  Tur- 
key and  her  people  or  has  made  a  more  thoughtful 
study  of  the  Armenian  Question  than  has  the  noted  traveler 
and  Orientalist,  David  G.  Hogarth,  sometime  fellow  in  the 
University  of  Oxford.  With  an  experience  of  several  years 
in  Armenia,  he  frankly  declares,  writing  of  the  Armenian 
Question : 

So  far  as  I  understand  this  vexed  matter,  the  source  of 
the  graver  trouble  is  the  presence  in  the  heart  of  Armenia 
of  the  defiant  Kurdish  race  which  raids  the  villages  where 
the  flocks  are  fattest  and  the  women  most  fair,  now  cutting 
an  Armenian's  throat,  now  leaguing  with  him  in  a  war  on 
a  hostile  tribe  and  resisting  in  common  the  troops  sent  up 
to  restore  the  Sultan's  peace.  Whatever  the  Kurd  does  is 
done  for  the  sake  neither  of  Crescent  nor  Cross,  for  he 
bears  neither  one  emblem  nor  the  other  in  his  heart,  but 


17  The  massacre  in  Constantinople  which  so  horrified  the  civilized  world 
was,  like  that  in  Adana,  provoked  by  the  revolutionary  activities  of  the 
Armenians.  After  having  boldly  announced  their  intention  of  applying  the 
torch  to  the  city  and  "reducing  it,"  as  their  posted  placards  phrased  it,  "to 
a  desert  of  ashes,"  a  party  of  audacious  young  conspirators  proceeded  to  blow 
up  the  Ottoman  Imperial  Bank,  while  others  of  their  associates  made  the 
Psammatia  quarter  flow  in  the  blood  of  helpless  inhabitants.  During  eighteen 
hours  of  terror  the  carnage  which  the  Armenians  caused  by  their  use  of 
dynamite  and  by  throwing  bombs  from  the  windows  upon  the  Turkish  soldiers, 
who  were  detailed  to  suppress  the  outbreak,  rivaled  anything  recorded  in  the 
worst  days  of  the  Paris  Commune  of  1871.  Cf.  Turquie  Agonisante,  p.  174 
(by  Pierre  Loti). 

Without  pretending  to  absolve  the  exasperated  Turks  for  their  part  in  this 
appalling  massacre,  I  may  ask  "what  would  the  people  of  New  York  do  if  a 
foreign  mob  from  the  East  Side  with  the  red  flag  at  their  head  were  to  attempt 
to  blow  up  the  Subtreasury  Building  and  to  make  the  same  use  of  high 
explosives  in  their  wanton  destruction  of  life  and  property  as  did  the  Ar- 
menians in  their  ghastly  work  in  Constantinople?"  The  answer  will  be  suffi- 
cient attenuation  for  the  conduct  of  the  infuriated  Turks  on  this  frightful 
occasion.  And  yet,  according  to  the  reports  flashed  through  the  world  at  the 
time,  this  massacre,  like  that  at  Adana  and  at  numberless  other  places,  was 
laid  to  the  charge  of  the  "unspeakable  Turk."  It  was  the  old,  old  story;  the 
Turk  is  always  guilty,  the  Armenian  never. 


IN  HISTOEIO  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS         209 

just  because  lie  is  Ishmael,  his  hand  is  against  every  man 
who  has  aught  to  lose. 

The  Armenian,  for  all  his  ineffaceable  nationalism,  his 
passion  for  plotting  and  his  fanatical  intolerance,  would  be 
a  negligible  thorn  in  the  Ottoman  side  did  he  stand  alone  . . . 
but  behind  the  Armenian  secret  societies — and  there  are 
few  Armenians  who  have  not  committed  technical  treason 
by  becoming  members  of  such  societies  at  some  period  of 
their  lives — it  sees  the  Kurd,  and  behind  the  Kurd  the 
Russian;  or,  looking  west,  it  espies,  through  the  ceaseless 
sporadic  propaganda  of  the  agitators,  Exeter  Hall  and  the 
Armenian  Committees.  The  Turk  begins  to  repress  be- 
cause we  sympathize  and  we  sympathize  the  more  because 
he  represses,  and  so  the  vicious  circle  revolves.  Does  he 
habitually,  however,  do  more  than  repress?  Does  he,  as 
administrator,  oppress  ?  So  far  we  have  heard  one  version 
only,  one  party  to  this  suit  with  its  stories  of  outrage  and 
echoing  through  them  a  long  cry  for  national  independence. 
The  mouth  of  the  accused  has  been  shut  hitherto  by  fatal- 
ism, by  custom,  by  the  gulf  of  misunderstanding  which  is 
fixed  between  the  Christian  and  the  Moslem. 

If  the  Kurdish  Question  could  be  settled  by  a  vigorous 
Marshal,  and  the  Porte  secured  against  irresponsible  Euro- 
pean support  of  sedition,  I  believe  that  the  Armenians 
would  not  have  much  more  to  complain  of,  like  the  Athenian 
allies  of  old,  than  the  fact  of  subjection — a  fact,  be  it  noted, 
of  very  long  standing ;  for  the  Turk  rules  by  right  of  five 
hundred  years'  possession,  and  before  his  day  the  Kurd, 
the  Byzantine,  the  Persian,  the  Parthian,  the  Roman,  pre- 
ceded each  other  as  over-lords  of  Greater  Armenia  to  the 
misty  days  of  the  first  Tigranes.  The  Turk  claims  certain 
rights  in  this  matter— the  right  to  safeguard  his  own  exist- 
ence, the  right  to  smoke  out  such  hornets '  nests  as  Zeitun 
which  has  annihilated  for  centuries  past  the  trade  of  the 
Eastern  Taurus,  the  right  to  remain  dominant  by  all  means 
not  outrageous. 

I  see  no  question  at  issue  but  this  of  outrage.  For  the 
rest  there  is  but  academic  sympathy  with  aspiring  nation- 
alisms or  subject  religion,  sympathy  not  over  cogent  in  the 
mouths  of  those  who  have  won  and  kept  so  much  of  the 
^orld  as  we:  Arria  must  draw  the  dagger  reeking  from 


210  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

her  own  breast  before  she  can  hand  it  with  any  conviction 
to  Pastus.^* 

To  speak  in  this  fashion  of  the  Armenians  is  more  painful 
to  me  than  I  can  express.  From  my  youth  I  have  sympa- 
thized with  them  in  their  great  sufferings  and,  like  most 
other  people  who  depended  on  one-sided  information,  I 
attributed  all  their  misfortunes  to  the  much  maligned  and 
much  caluminated  Turks.  Were  the  Armenians  raided  and 
maltreated  by  the  lawless  and  murderous  Kurds,  who  have 
been  responsible  for  the  greater  part  of  the  crimes  which 
have  been  imputed  to  the  Osmanlis  1  A  sensational  report 
was  at  once  flashed  over  the  world  of  a  great  massacre  in 
Asia  Minor  perpetrated  by  the  fanatical  and  fiendish  Turk. 
Were  they  victims  of  Russian  intrigue  and  aggression, 
driven  from  their  homes  and  forcibly  separated  from  their 
families?  Again  it  was  the  Turk  that  was  at  the  bottom 
of  it  all.  Did  they  suffer  reprisals  for  seditious  outbreaks  of 
plotting  Huntchagists  and  revolutionary  Armenians  of  for- 
eign extraction?  Still  again  the  hue  and  cry  was  raised  in 
Europe  and  America  that  the  soulless  Turk,  always  the 
Turk,  only  the  Turk,  was  the  guilty  one.  Armenian  agitators, 
Armenian  jacks-in-oflfice,  Armenian  revolutionary  com- 
mittees provoking  the  Turks  to  retaliate  on  their  offenders 
in  order  to  force  the  intervention  of  the  Great  Powers  ^^ — 
these  political  mischief-makers  go  scot-free  while  the  ever 
vilified  Osmanli  is  pilloried  before  the  world  as  a  monster 
of  iniquity  and  a  demon  incarnate. 

The  Anatolian  Halil  Halid,  who  was  born  and  bred  in 
Asia  Minor  and  who  spent  many  years  in  England,  com- 
menting on  the  matters  under  consideration,  pertinently 
asks,  **Did  the  humanitarian  British  public  know  these 

ISA  Wandering  Scholar  in  the  Levant,  pp.  147-150  (London,  1896). 

19  Pierre  Loti  tells  of  a  French  consul  in  Asia  Minor  who  barely  escaped 
assassination  at  the  hands  of  an  Armenian  agitator  who,  when  questioned 
regarding  his  attempt  on  the  life  of  the  functionary,  coolly  replied:  "I  did 
this  in  order  that  the  Turks  might  be  accused  of  it  and  in  the  hope  that  the 
French  would  rise  up  against  them  after  the  murder  of  their  consul."  Les 
Maaaaerea  d'Arm6nie,  p.  60  (Paris,  1918). 


IN  HISTORIC  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS         211 

things  ?  No ;  it  does  not  care  to  know  anything  which  might 
be  favorable  to  the  Turks.  Have  the  political  journals  of 
this  country — ^Britain — mentioned  the  facts  I  have  stated? 
Of  course  not,  because — to  speak  plainly — ^they  know  that 
in  the  Armenian  pie  there  were  the  fingers  of  some  of  their 
own  politicians. '  * "  And  those  that  are  well  informed  know 
the  reason  of  Britain's  attitude  toward  Turkey,  for  they 
know  that  ''since  1829,  when  the  Greeks  obtained  their 
independence,  England's  Near  East  policy  has  been  re- 
morselessly aimed  at  the  demolition  of  the  Turkish  Empire 
and  the  destruction  of  Ottoman  sovereignty." 

Does  France,  the  first  nation  of  Europe  to  form  an 
alliance  with  the  sublime  Porte,  know  these  things?  She 
does,  but,  at  the  present  time,  it  suits  her  purpose  to  feign 
ignorance  of  them  and  to  follow  the  policy  of  England  in 
her  dealings  with  those  whom  she  has  professed  to  be  her 
friends  and  allies  since  the  days  of  Francis  I.  With  a  volte- 
face  worthy  of  a  politician  she  does  not  even  allow  a 
favorite  Academician,  Pierre  Loti — ^who  knows  the  Turks 
better  probably  than  any  man  in  France — to  make  a  state- 
ment in  their  favor,  without  censoring  it,  for  fear  he  will 
reflect  on  the  course  of  the  present  government. 

Does  our  own  country,  whose  people  are  supposed  to  be 
always  on  the  side  of  justice  and  fair  play,  know  the  truth 
about  the  Turks  and  Armenians  in  Asia  Minor?  Not  one 
in  a  hundred ;  not  one  in  a  thousand.  The  reason  is  simple. 
They  have  heard  only  one  side  of  the  Armenian  question, 
and,  in  most  cases,  are  quite  unwilling  even  to  hear  anything 
to  the  advantage  of  the  long-defamed  Turks.  With  most 
of  our  people  the  case  of  the  Turks  has  been  prejudged  and 
thrown  out  of  court.  And  when  one  who  has  made  a 
thorough  study  of  conditions  in  Asia  Minor  writes  that 
**the  most  part  of  the  peasantry  are  men  of  peace,  needing 
no  military  force  to  coerce  them,  giving  little  occasion  to 
the  scanty  police  and  observing  a  Pax  Anatolica  for  re- 


20  The  Diary  of  a  Turk,  p.  130. 


212  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

ligion's  sake,""  he  gives  most  of  our  people,  who  should 
have  an  open  mind,  a  distinct  shock,  but  does  not  change 
in  the  least  their  life-long  prejudices.  And  when  the  same 
well-informed  writer  declares  that  "Aliens,  Greek,  Arme- 
nian, Circassian  thrust  him"— the  Turk— *' on  one  side  and 
take  his  little  parcel  of  land  by  fraud  or  force""  he  is 
suspected  of  being  a  special  pleader  and  his  testimony 
is  rejected  as  worthless. 

But  it  may  be  said  that  I  too  am  a  special  pleader  for 
the  Turk.  Nothing  is  farther  from  my  intention.  My  sole 
desire  is  to  make  known  the  truth  as  I  have  found  it,  and 
I  have  found  that  it  is  not  all  on  the  side  of  the  Armenians. 
**The  Turk's  patience  is  almost  inexhaustible,  but  when 
you  attack  his  women  and  children  his  anger  is  aroused  and 
nothing  on  earth  can  control  it. ' '  ^^  Then,  like  all  other 
races  of  mankind,  when  stirred  by  religious  or  political 
fanaticism  or  goaded  on  by  domestic  sedition  and  foreign 
intrigue,  the  Turks  also  resort  to  reprisals  and  massacres 
that  startle  the  world.  It  may,  however,  be  questioned 
whether  in  all  their  history  the  Turks  have  perpetrated 
such  refined  atrocities  as  characterized  the  Reign  of  Terror 
in  France,  Russia  dragonades  in  Poland,  Serbian  and 
Bulgarian  savagery  in  the  Balkans,  unprovoked  deeds  of 
violence  instigated  by  Armenian  revolutionists  in  Asia 
Minor.  But  of  all  the  people  involved  in  these  unspeakable 
outrages  the  Turk  is  the  only  one  who  is  not  pardoned. 
Why  not  ?  He  has  never  been  granted  a  fair  hearing  before 
the  great  tribunal  of  humanity. 

From  the  foregoing  it  is  evident  that  the  Armenian  Ques- 
tion will  not  be  settled  so  long  as  Armenian  agitators  are 

21 D.  G.  Hogarth,  op.  cit,  p,  77. 

22  Ibid.,  65. 

23Halil  Halid's  Diary  of  a  Turk,  p.  129  (London,  1903).  "Alora,"  declares 
Pierre  Loti,  "comme  des  lions  exaspdr^s  ils  se  dechainent  contre  ceux  que, 
depuis  dea  sifecles,  on  leur  a  denonces  comme  les  plus  dangereux  responsablea 
de  tous  les  malheurs  de  la  patrie.  .  .  .  Hdlas!  oui,  les  Turcs  ont  massacr6! 
Je  pretends  toutefois  que  le  recit  de  leur  tueries  a  toujours  ete  follement 
exag^r^  et  les  details  enlaidis  k  plaisir;  je  pretends  aussi — et  personne  li-bas 
n'oaera  me  contredire — que  la  beaucoup  plus  lourde  part  dea  crimes  commis 
revient  amx  Kurdea  dont  je  n'  ai  jamais  pris  la  defense."    Op.  cit.,  p.  22-24. 


IN  HISTORIC  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS         213 

allowed  to  sow  with  impunity  the  seeds  of  sedition  in  Asia 
Minor,  or  so  long  as  they  are  abetted  by  European  nations 
whose  manifest  goal  is  the  partition  of  the  Turkish  Em- 
pire.^'* It  is  also  evident  that,  so  long  as  present  conditions 
persist,  sporadic  massacres  like  those  provoked  by  the 
Armenians  in  Cilicia  and  Constantinople  are  inevitable. 
These  conditions  involve  also  the  greater  and  more  impor- 
tant Turkish  Question,  or,  speaking  broadly,  the  Mussulman 
Question.  The  Great  Powers  cannot,  without  grave  con- 
sequences, treat  Turkey  as  a  pariah  nation.  This  the  ever- 
increasing  number  of  adherents  of  the  Prophet  will  not 
tolerate.  The  two  hundred  millions  of  the  Faithful  are,  be 
it  remembered,  the  chief  factors  in  the  Near  Eastern  Ques- 
tion, which  can  never  be  settled  so  long  as  the  Moslems  are 
not  accorded  fair  play  in  the  arena  of  nations.  The  present 
schemes  of  exploitation  and  conquest  in  Mohammedan 
lands  now  being  executed  by  the  Great  Powers  can,  in  the 
long  run,  have  but  one  result— and  that  in  spite  of  all  peace 
treaties  and  leagues  of  nations — the  result  of  still  farther 
separating  the  Cross  and  the  Crescent  and  of  strengthening 
the  barriers  that  have  existed  between  the  East  and  the 
West  since  Greek  battled  with  Trojan  on  the  Plain  of  Troy. 
As  we  wandered  through  the  suburbs  of  Tarsus,  made 
fragrant  by  the  inviting  gardens  and  orchards  of  lemon  and 
orange,  we  were  deeply  impressed  with  the  possibilities  of 
the  exceptionally  rich  alluvial  soil  of  the  Cilician  Plain. 
Having  all  the  fertility  of  the  Nile  it  should,  if  drained, 
irrigated,  and  scientifically  farmed,  sustain  a  population 

24  Commenting  on  this  subject  Professor,  now  Sir  William  Ramsay,  writes, 
"Lord  Salisbury  protests  in  the  strongest  terms  that  Britain  has  never  enter- 
tained any  schemes  of  acquisition  in  Asia  Minor.  There  is,  however,  probably 
no  Russian  or  German  or  Frenchman  who  believes  him.  .  .  .  The  protesta- 
tions that  Britain  entertains  no  designs  in  Asia  Minor  merely  make  people 
abroad  all  the  more  sure  that  a  British  statesman's  word  can  never  be 
trusted."  And,  referring  to  her  creation  of  a  new  consular  department  to  aid 
her  in  compassing  her  designs,  he  observes  "as  a  piece  of  statesmanship,  crafty 
and  unscrupulous,  but  able,  it  was  a  master-stroke;  though  I  think  no  one 
among  us  will  ever  look  back  to  it  without  blushing  for  the  jockeying  by 
which  it  was  effected."  Impreaaiona  of  Turkey  During  Twelve  Ycara  Wander- 
inga,  pp.  142-144  (London,  1897). 

In  the  light  of  recent  events  how  significant — almost  prophetic — are  these 
words  of  Sir  William  on  British  policy  and  diplomacy  regarding  TurkeyJ, 


214  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

even  greater  than  that  which  inhabited  it  in  the  days  of 
Pompey  and  Trajan.  In  soil  and  climate  it  is  as  favorable 
for  the  production  of  cotton  and  sugar  cane  as  Texas  or 
Louisiana,  while  in  cereals  and  fruits  of  many  kinds  it  yields 
as  large  crops  as  the  most  favored  districts  of  France  or 
Germany. 

But  irrigation  is  needed  near  the  foothills  of  the  sur- 
rounding mountains  and  adequate  drainage  is  required  near 
the  mouths  of  the  four  chief  rivers  that  bring  fertility  to 
the  plain.  For,  as  it  is  now,  a  great  part  of  the  land  border- 
ing the  Mediterranean  is  covered  with  swamps  like  that 
described  by  Ovid  in  his  beautiful  story  of  Philemon  and 
Baucis : 

Hand  procul  hinc  siagnum,  iellus  hahitahilis  olim, 
Nunc  celehres  mergis  fulicisque  palustribus  undcB?^ 

During  the  past  few  decades  a  great  change  has  been 
made  for  the  better,  as  is  attested  by  the  large  number  of 
American  agricultural  implements  which  are  now  found 
throughout  the  plain  and  the  hundreds  of  ginning  machines, 
looms,  and  thousands  of  spindles — ^mostly  from  England — 
which  are  seen  in  the  cotton  factories  of  Tarsus  and  Adana. 
But,  although  a  great  advance  has  been  made  over  the  con- 
dition which  obtained  a  third  of  a  century  ago,  there  is  yet 
vast  room  for  improvement.  When  the  Ottoman  Govern- 
ment shall  awaken  to  the  necessity  of  conserving  its  natural 
resources,  when  it  shall  systematically  reforest  the  terri- 
tory whose  once  precious  woodlands  have  been  so  sadly 
despoiled,  and  shall  duly  drain  the  vast  swamps  which  have 
been  formed  by  the  neglect  of  its  treasure-giving  rivers, 
Cilicia  Campestris  will  again  be  worthy  of  the  name  which 
legend  tells  us  it  once  bore — Garden  of  Eden. 

As  it  is  now,  the  whole  extent  of  Cilicia  from  the  Taurus 
to  the  Amanus  and  from  the  mouth  of  the  Cydnus  to  the 
headwaters   of   the    Pyramus   is   chiefly   remarkable   for 

25  Where  men  once  dwelt,  a  dreary  lake  is  seen, 
And  coots  and  bitterns  haunt  the  waters  green. 

Metamorphoses,  VIII,  24,  25. 


IN  HISTORIC  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS         215 

ruins  of  cities  and  the  sites  of  towns  whose  very  names 
are  forgotten.  Everywhere  on  the  plain  and  on  the  girdling 
foothills,  one  will  see  crumbling  fortresses  built  by  Genoese 
and  Venetians ;  moss-covered  strongholds  of  Saracens  and 
Crusaders;  Corinthian  columns  and  marble  colonnades, 
arches,  and  vaulted  roofs  of  Christian  churches ;  reminders 
of  mediaeval  warfare  and  of  days  when  this  historic  land 
was  swept  by  inundations  of  barbarian  hordes,  who  de- 
stroyed by  fire  and  sword  the  arts  and  labors  which  were 
once  the  pride  of  western  Asia.  Everywhere  one  observes 
fragmentary  remains  of  Roman  bridges  and  arches,  of 
aqueducts  and  causeways,  of  Greek  altars  attributed  to 
Alexander  to  commemorate  his  victory  over  the  Persians ; 
dilapidated  walls  and  towers  and  sepulchral  grottoes  with 
an  occasional  Greek  or  Arabic  inscription  to  mark  the  sites 
of  Corycus,  Pompeiopolis,  and  Anazarba — those  cities  of  re- 
nown, where  their  inhabitants  could  quietly  rest  under  their 
vines  and  fig  trees  free  from  the  incursions  of  predatory 
Cliteans  and  Tibareni  and  barbarians  of  Hun  and  Scithian 
savagery,  who  spread  terror  and  devastation  wherever  they 
could  gratify  their  lust  of  cruelty  or  plunder.  It  was  the 
boast  of  the  Mongols  that  so  complete  was  their  work  of 
** extirpation  and  erasure'*  of  certain  cities,  where  they  had 
wreaked  their  full  fury  of  rapine  and  murder,  "that  horses 
might  run  without  stumbling  over  the  ground  where  they 
had  once  stood. ' '  ^*    Judging  by  the  calamities  that  have 


26  Count  Marcellinus,  one  of  the  first  ministers  of  Justinian,  vividly  de- 
scribes, in  a  single  sentence,  the  frightful  depredations  of  Attila  when  this 
dreadful  "Scourge  of  God"  Pene  totam  Europam,  invasia  exciaique  dvitatibus 
atque  caatellis,  conrasit.  This  sentence  perfectly  describes  the  depredations 
of  Timur  and  Jenghiz  Khan  during  their  terror-inspiring  careers  in  Western 
Asia.  Of  Jenghiz  Khan  the  Arabian  traveler,  Ibn  Batuta,  writes  that  he 
"came  into  the  countries  of  Islamism  and  destroyed  them."  The  same  au- 
thority says  that  after  destroying  such  great  cities  as  Bokhara  and  Samarcand 
"he  killed  the  inhabitants,  taking  prisoners  the  youth  only  and  leaving  the 
country  quite  desolate.  He  then  passed  over  the  Gihon  and  took  possession  of 
all  Khorasan  and  Irak,  destroying  the  cities  and  slaughtering  the  inhabitants." 
His  son,  Hulaku,  laid  Bagdad  in  ruins,  whence  he  proceeded  with  his  followers 
to  Syria,  continuing  his  depredations  "until  divine  Providence  put  an  end  to 
his  career."  The  Travels  of  Ibn  Batuta,  pp.  87,  88,  89  (trans,  by  S.  Lee, 
London,  1829). 

The  English  historian,  Marshman,  writing  of  the  elder  Mongol  conqueror, 


216  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

been  inflicted  on  the  once  populous  cities  of  Cilicia  one 
would  say  that  they  were,  in  the  expressive  words  of  St. 
Prosper  of  Aquitaine,  depredatione  vastatce — ravaged  by 
depredations  as  ruthless  as  those  that  ever  characterized 
the  frightful  irruptions  of  Timur  or  Jenghiz  Khan. 

This  indiscriminate  destruction  of  centers  of  culture  and 
marts  of  commerce  is  often  attributed  to  the  Turks.  But, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  the  Turks — I  refer  especially  to 
the  Osmanlis — ^who  have  been  the  rulers  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire  for  more  than  five  hundred  years,  were  not  like  the 
Mongols  and  Tartars,  a  nation  of  raiders,  but  a  nation  of 
colonizers  and  empire  builders.  Their  object,  therefore, 
was  not  to  destroy  but  to  construct  and  develop.  Those  who 
make  this  charge,  which  is  in  great  measure  gratuitous, 
forget  the  wholesale  destruction  of  the  hordes  of  Timur  and 
Jenghiz  Khan,  not  to  speak  of  other  raiders,  and  lose  sight 
of  the  fact  that  some  of  the  most  famous  cities  of  the  East 
were  reduced  to  ashes  by  the  armies  of  Greece  and  Rome 

declares:  "From  the  Caspian  to  the  Indus,  more  than  one  thousand  miles  in 
extent,  the  whole  country  was  laid  waste  with  fire  and  sword  by  the  ruthless 
barbarians  who  followed  Jenghiz  Khan.  It  was  the  greatest  calamity  which 
had  befallen  the  human  race  since  the  Deluge  and  five  centuries  have  been 
barely  suflBcient  to  repair  that  desolation."  History  of  India  from  Remote 
Antiquity  to  the  Accession  of  the  Mogul  Dynasty,  Vol.  I,  p.  49  (London, 
1842). 

"Well  might  the  Mussulman  and  Christian  world  shrink  down  upon  its 
knees  in  the  presence  of  such  a  terrible  visitation.  'We  pray  God,'  writes 
Ibin  al  Athir,  'that  He  will  send  ^o  Islam  and  to  the  Mussulmans  someone 
who  can  protect  them,  for  they  are  the  victims  of  the  most  terrible  calamity, 
the  men  killed,  their  goods  pillaged,  their  children  carried  off,  their  wives 
reduced  to  slavery  or  put  to  death,  the  country  in  fact,  laid  waste.'  Juveni 
Bays  that  in  the  country  traversed  hj  the  Mongols,  only  a  thousandth  part  of 
the  population  remained  and  where  there  were  previously  one  hundred  thou- 
sand inhabitants  there  remained  but  a  hundred.  'If  nothing  interferes  with 
the  growth  of  the  population  in  Khorasan  and  Irak  Ajem  from  now  to  the 
day  of  resurrection,'  he  adds,  'it  will  not  be  the  tenths  of  what  it  was  before 
the  conquest.' "  History  of  the  Mongols,  Part  III,  p.  i  (by  H.  Howorth, 
London,  1888). 

Jenghiz  Khan  and  "his  followers  tramped  over  the  fairest  portions  of  the 
earth  with  the  faggot  and  the  sword  in  their  hands,  forestalling  the  day  of 
doom  and  crumbling  into  ruin  many  old  civilizations.  His  creed  was  to  sweep 
away  all  cities  as  the  haunts  of  slaves  and  of  luxury,  that  his  herds  might 
freely  feed  upon  grass  whose  green  was  free  from  dusty  feet.  It  does  make 
one  hide  one's  face  in  terror  to  read  that  from  1211  to  1223  eighteen  million 
four  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  human  beings  perished  in  China  and 
Tangut  alone  at  the  hands  of  Jenghiz  and  his  followers;  a  fearful  hecatomb 
which  haunts  the  memory  until  one  forgets  the  other  features  of  the  story." 
Howorth,  op.  cit..  Part  I,  p.  113. 


IN  HISTORIC  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS         217 

more  than  a  thousand  years  before  the  appearance  of  the 
armies  of  the  Ottoman  conquerors  in  Syria,  Greece,  and 
Ionia.  Thus,  to  mention  only  a  few  instances,  it  was  Alex- 
ander the  Great  who  destroyed  Halicarnasus,  the  birthplace 
of  the  historians  Herodotus  and  Dionysius.  Here  stood  the 
magnijBcent  tomb  of  Mausolus,  classed  by  the  ancients 
among  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world,  the  ruins  of  which 
were  in  1402  used  by  the  Knights  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem 
as  a  quarry  for  building  their  castles.  It  was  the  Roman 
general  Mummius  who  brought  ruin  to  the  famous  city  of 
Corinth.  This  was,  in  truth,  rebuilt  by  Julius  Caesar,  but 
only  to  be  destroyed  again,  at  a  much  later  period,  by  the 
Greeks  themselves.  It  was  the  Emperor  Aurelian  who 
doomed  to  destruction  Palmyra,  the  magnificent  capital  of 
Zenobia,  almost  during  the  heyday  of  its  architectural 
splendor  and  commercial  prosperity.  It  was  the  Goths  who 
demolished  the  temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus,  another  of  the 
word's  wonders,  while  the  city  itself  was  in  ruins  even 
before  the  advent  of  the  devastating  Timur.  But  it  was 
Timur  who  razed  Sardis,  the  capital  of  Croesus,  whose  name 
has  ever  been  a  synonym  of  untold  wealth.  It  was  Malik 
al-Ashraf,  ruler  of  Egypt  and  Syria,  who  destroyed  the 
famed  city  of  Tyre  after  its  long  and  eventful  history  which 
antedated  the  reigns  of  Hiram  and  Solomon. 

Moreover,  for  thousands  of  years  before  the  advent  of 
the  Osmanlis  in  western  Asia  there  was  at  work  an  agency 
of  destruction  that  is  usually  quite  disregarded  by  those 
who  are  so  propense  to  impute  to  the  "Unspeakable  Turk" 
the  heaps  of  ruins  which  overspread  a  large  part  of  the 
great  Ottoman  Empire— an  agency  whose  power  of  annihi- 
lation is  incomparably  greater  than  ever  was  that  of  Hun 
or  Mongol.  This  is  the  earthquake.  From  the  dawn  of 
history  this  irresistible  power  has  been  in  action  in  nearly 
all  the  countries  bordering  the  Mediterranean,  and  has, 
times  without  number,  exhibited  its  relentless  fury  from 
Cilicia  to  Sicily  and  from  Egypt  to  Dalmatia.   In  Palestine, 


218  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Syria,  Asia  Minor,"  and  Greece  whole  cities  were  subverted. 
In  the  reign  of  Valens  and  Valentinian  the  greater  part  of 
the  Roman  world  was  shaken  by  seismic  disturbances  of  the 
most  appalling  violence.  Time  and  again  the  massive  walls 
of  Constantinople,  its  palaces,  churches,  and  monasteries 
crumbled  under  the  earth's  paroxysmal  movements,  and 
the  extent  of  the  disaster  inflicted  was  beyond  computation. 
At  Cyzicus  a  temple  which  its  builders  fondly  hoped  would 
be  as  stable  and  as  durable  as  the  pyramids  was,  in  an 
instant,  leveled  with  the  ground  by  one  of  those  periodical 
earth  shocks  that  have  visited  Asia  Minor  from  time  imme- 
morial. 

In  the  destructive  earthquake  of  365  A.  D.,  no  fewer  than 
fifty  thousand  persons  lost  their  lives  in  Alexandria.  But 
probably  no  city  in  the  world  has  suffered  more  from 
seismic  vibrations  than  Antioch,  which  is  near  the  southern 
border  of  Cilicia.  Here  in  the  terrific  earthquake  of  526 
A.  D.,  the  loss  of  life  totaled  a  full  quarter  of  a  million 
people.  During  the  celebration  of  a  public  festival  in 
Greece,  at  which  a  vast  multitude  had  assembled,  "the 
whole  population  was  swallowed  up  in  the  midst  of  the  cere- 
monies." It  was  during  this  period  of  widespread  catas- 
trophe in  Greece  that  **the  ravages  of  earthquakes  began 
to  figure  in  history  as  an  important  cause  of  the  impover- 
ished and  declining  condition  of  the  country. ' ' " 

The  same  causes  that  led  to  the  economic  and  social 
decline  of  Greece  operated  with  equally  dire  results  in  Asia 
Minor  and  Syria  and  Palestine.  When,  therefore,  we  con- 
template the  countless  ruins  of  once  famous  cities,  that  are 
so  conspicuous  in  a  great  part  of  Greece  and  Turkey  in 
Asia,  let  us  assign  them  to  their  real  causes — ^not  **the  rav- 
aging Turks,"  but  the  devastating  Huns  and  Goths,  Tartars 
and  Mongols,  Persians  and  Saracens,  and  the  blind  and  con- 
vulsive forces  of  nature. 


27 Pliny  in  his  Eistoria  Naturalis,  II,  86,  writes:  Maximua  terrce  memoria 
mortalium  extitit  motus,  Tiberii  Caesaria  principatu;  XII  urbibua  Asice  una 
node  prostatia. 

28  History  of  Greece  From  Its  Conquests  by  the  Romans  to  the  Present 
Time,  B.C.  U6  to  A.D.  1864,  Vol.  I,  p.  224  (by  George  Finlay,  Oxford,  1877). 


IN  HISTORIC  CILICIA  CAMPESTRIS        219 

It  is  far  from  my  purpose  to  excuse  the  Osmanlis  from 
any  of  the  crimes  they  have  perpetrated  against  civilization. 
But  the  foregoing  paragraphs  evince  that  their  part  in  the 
destruction  of  the  proud  cities  and  monuments — ^magnificent 
centers  of  culture  and  commerce — of  the  ancient  world  has 
been  greatly  exaggerated.  Their  great  sin  against  human- 
ity, at  least  for  generations  past,  has  been  one  of  omission 
rather  than  commission.^^  It  has  consisted — I  speak  of  the 
ruling  classes — in  their  inefficient  government,  which  has 
given  little  or  no  encouragement  to  trade  or  industry ;  which 
has  neglected  roads  and  bridges,  making  interior  communi- 
cation difficult  and  often  impossible;  which  has  failed  to 
develop  the  vast  resources  of  a  country  to  which  a  beneficent 
nature  has  been  rarely  prodigal ;  which  has  oppressed  and 
trodden  down  a  laborious  and  long-suffering  peasantry,  than 
which  there  is  no  better  in  the  world ;  which  has  failed  to 
provide  for  the  education  of  the  masses,  ever  eager  for 
knowledge  and  improvement ;  which  has  permitted  system- 
atic bribery  in  high  places  and  allowed  crying  malfeasance 
in  office  to  go  unpunished ;  which,  by  its  unexampled  apathy, 
has  been  responsible  for  one  of  the  richest  countries. in  the 
world  degenerating  into  one  of  the  most  desolate,  and  for 
a  great  mass  of  its  people — although  innocent — ^becoming 
the  most  execrated. 

Surely  this  indictment  is  damning  enough  without  cum- 
bering it  with  counts  which  are  irrelevant  or  of  which  the 
Sultan's  government  is  not  guilty.  But,  fortunately  for 
those  who  are  able  to  read  the  signs  of  the  times,  there  are 
well-grounded  hopes  for  a  change  for  the  better — for  a 
return  to  the  position  among  nations  which  the  Ottoman 
Empire  occupied  when  its  schools  and  scholars  were  as 
famed  as  were  its  achievements  on  land  and  sea — when  the 
followers  of  Osman  shall  be  as  far  in  the  van  of  civilization 
as  they  are  now  in  the  rear. 

29  I  do  not  ignore  the  atrocities  which  the  Turks,  especially  during  the  last 
few  decades,  are  alleged  to  have  committed  in  Armenia  and  elsewhere.  But 
until  reliable  testimony  as  to  the  Ottoman  side  of  the  question  is  forth- 
coming it  is  only  fair  to  the  accused  for  one  to  suspend  judgment. 


CHAPTER  X 

ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Properly  to  appreciate  Mohammed  we  must  discard  our 
religious  and  national  prejudices  and  see  in  his  work  only 
what  he  has  put  in  it,  independently  of  the  consequences 
which  this  work  has  entailed  and  which  may  more  or  less 
wound  us  even  to-day. 

J.  Barth:^l.emy  St.  Hilaire.^ 

No  one  can  travel  through  the  Near  East  with  an  intelli- 
gent appreciation  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  its  people 
without  an  accurate  knowledge  of  the  religion  professed  by 
the  majority  of  them  and  an  adequate  familiarity  with  the 
life  and  times  of  the  one  whom  they  revere  as  their  Founder 
and  Prophet.  The  reason  is  obvious.  The  inhabitants — 
Osmanlis,  Arabs,  Turkomans — of  this  part  of  the  once  great 
Ottoman  Empire  have  so  long  lived  under  the  theocracy 
established  by  Mohammed  and  his  successors  that  every 
detail  of  their  religion  and  civil  life  is  regulated  for  them 
with  a  thoroughness  that,  outside  of  Islam,  is  quite  un- 
known. The  Sultan  as  well  as  the  MoUah  is  both  a  religious 
and  a  civil  functionary,  and  theocratic  government  prevails 
everywhere  from  the  palace  of  the  Padishah  on  the  Bos- 
phorus  to  the  tent  of  the  Bedouin  in  the  Syrian  and  Arabian 
Deserts.  What  is  not  prescribed  by  the  Koran  is  ordered 
by  the  Hadith,  that  body  of  legislative  traditions  which  is 
based  on  the  reputed  sayings  or  acts  of  the  Prophet  of 
Mecca,  and  which,  in  the  eyes  of  loyal  adherents  of  Islam, 
has  the  force  of  prescriptions  emanating  directly  or  indi- 
rectly from  Allah,  and  which  are,  consequently,  immutable. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  one  who  is  ignorant  of  the 
history  of  Islam  will  not  only  seriously  misunderstand 

1  Mahomet  et  le  Goran,  p.  vii  (Paris,  1865). 

220 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT  221 

the  people  of  Moslem  countries  but  will  also  be  compelled, 
before  he  shall  be  long  in  their  midst,  greatly  to  revise  his 
previous  notions  respecting  them.  For  he  will  soon  dis- 
cover, as  have  many  others  before  him,  that  while  he  knew 
all  about  their  defects,  he  had  little  or  no  knowledge  of 
their  many  and  very  great  virtues. 

As  his  sojourn  among  the  Moslems  is  prolonged  and  he 
becomes  better  acquainted  with  them,  he  will  find  that  most 
of  his  views  concerning  them  were  based  on  ungrounded 
prejudice  or  age-old  stories  that  had  no  other  basis  than 
crass  ignorance  or  un-Christian  hatred.  Not  only  this ;  he 
will  gradually  learn  to  admire  those  whom  he  had  been 
taught  to  despise  and,  if  he  be  of  a  deeply  religious  nature, 
he  may  find  himself  endorsing  the  statement  of  the  late 
General  Gordon:  **I  love  the  Moslems  because  they  are 
not  ashamed  of  God." 

To  the  student  of  history  it  seems  incredible  that  so 
many  and  so  egregious  errors  regarding  Islam  should  have 
so  long  prevailed  among  men  who  are  otherwise  well  in- 
formed and  disposed  to  be  fair  in  their  judgments  of  all 
peoples,  regardless  of  creed  or  color.  For  ''although  Islam 
has  been  described  in  so  many  books,  there  are  yet  educated 
people  who, ' '  in  the  words  of  the  learned  Padre  Marracci,* 
''believe  that  Moslems  are  idolaters  who  adore  Mohammed 
and  the  moon, ' '  ^  and  who,  as  the  scholarly  Sprenger  writes, 
"have  not  gotten  much  further  in  the  knowledge  of  Islam 
than  that  the  Turks  allow  polygamy." 

2  "Neque  in  hoc  me  falli  opinor  cum  hodieque  non  paucos  ex  nostris,  alio- 
quin  non  indoctos,  Mahumeticarum  rerum  tam  rudea  videam,  ut  Mahumetanos 
Idolatras,  Lunseque  ac  Mahumeti  adoratores  existiment,  aliasque  de  Agarenica 
secta  ejusque  Auctore  neptiaa  effutiant."  Alcorani  Textua  Vniveraua,  Tom.  I, 
p.  6  (Patavii,  1698). 

Padre  Lodovico  Marracci,  who  was  a  religious  of  the  order  of  the  Clerks 
Eegular  of  the  Mother  of  God,  was  the  confessor  of  Pope  Innocent  XII.  It 
was  in  obedience  to  the  command  of  this  Pontiff  that  he  published  his  great 
work  on  the  Koran  on  which  he  spent  forty  of  the  best  years  in  liis  life.  It 
embraces  three  folio  volumes  with  the  text  of  the  Koran  in  Arabic,  accom- 
panied by  a  Latin  translation  and  copious  notes,  and  is  notable  as  being  the 
most  successful  of  the  earlier  attempts  to  make  the  Koran  and  Mohammedan- 
ism known  to  the  Christian  world. 

8  Daa  Leben  und  die  Lehre  dea  Mohammed,  Vol.  II,  p.  181  (Berlin,  1862). 


222  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

If  it  were  a  question  of  the  inhabitants  of  Central  Africa, 
who  were  practically  unknown  until  the  explorations  of 
Speke,  Stanley,  and  Livingstone,  we  should  not  be  surprised 
that  even  geographers  should  know  next  to  nothing  about 
them.  But  it  seems  difficult  to  explain  the  widespread 
ignorance  which  has  everywhere  obtained  regarding  a 
people  who  have  played  so  important  a  role  in  history  as 
the  Moslems,  and  who  during  more  than  twelve  centuries 
have  been  in  constant  relations  with  the  Christian  nations 
of  Europe. 

But,  although  the  contact  between  the  East  and  the  West 
has  been  iminterrupted  since  the  time  Moslemism  essayed 

To  plant  the  Crescent  o'er  the  Cross, 

the  misrepresentations  of  Mohammed  and  his  followers 
have  continued  without  intermission  from  the  days  of  the 
Crusaders  to  the  present  time.  And  the  strangest  thing  is 
that  the  most  extravagant  tales  about  Mohammedans  and 
their  religion  were  put  in  circulation  when  their  originators 
must  have  known  that  they  had  no  foundation  in  fact. 

Many  of  the  stories — as  false  as  they  were  ridiculous — 
that  were  long  current  respecting  the  Arabian  Prophet  and 
the  religion  which  he  founded  were  due  to  the  Trouveres 
and  the  Troubadours.  A  great  majority  of  the  Chansons 
de  Geste  exhibit  a  pitiful  ignorance  of  the  tenets  of  the 
Saracens,  and  not  a  few  of  them  contributed  to  give  vogue 
to  the  most  revolting  fables  respecting  Mohammed  and 
Islam.  Although  neither  Leo  the  Isaurian  nor  Oliver  Crom- 
well, both  the  sworn  enemies  of  images,  were  more  opposed 
to  idolatry  or  to  the  worship  of  images  than  Mohammed, 
nevertheless,  in  La  Chanson  de  Roland*  the  Franks  are 
represented  under  the  walls  of  Saragossa  as  avenging  their 

*  A  mil  Franceia  fait  hien  oerchier  la  vile. 
Lea  ainagogea  et  lea  mahumeries: 
A  mailz  de  fer,  h  ouigneea  qu  'il  tindrent, 
Fruiaaent  Mahum  e  treatutea  lea  ydlea. 

Lai  CCXCVI. 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT  223 

defeat  at  Boncesvelles  by  mutilating  and  destroying  the 
idols  of  their  enemies. 

In  the  Chanson  d'Antioche — declared  to  be  "a  very 
beautiful  chanson  which  does  not  contain  any  fables  but 
only  the  unadulterated  truth" — the  author,  Richard  le 
Pelerin,  in  the  beginning  of  his  poem,  asks  God  to  put  to 
dire  confusion  the  followers  of  Mohammed — especially 
those 

Qui  croieni  et  adorent  la  figure  Mahom. 

In  the  Roman  de  Beaudouin  de  Sehourc,  the  author  goes 
to  still  greater  lengths.  By  a  strange  aberration  he  makes 
the  idol  of  Mohammed  the  emblem  of  Islam,  as  the  Cross 
is  the  emblem  of  Christianity.  For,  in  this  chanson  the 
Comtesse  de  Porthieu  is  represented  as  wishing  to  abjure 
her  faith  before  the  Sultan  Saladin  and  expressing  her 
readiness  to  adore  the  effigy  of  the  Prophet : 

Mahom  voel  aourer;  aportez-le-moi-cha. 

And  Saladin,  on  his  part,  is  pictured  as  ordering  the  idol 
to  be  brought  for  the  adoration  of  the  newly  made  convert 
to  Mohammedanism : 

Qu'  on  aporiast  Mahom,  et  celle  I'aoura. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  Mohammed  was  all  his  life 
the  relentless  enemy  of  images  of  all  kinds  and  that  he 
absolutely  proscribed  the  representation  of  animated  crea- 
tures ;  when  it  is  recalled  that  images  of  all  kinds  have  been 
studiously  excluded  from  every  mosque  in  the  world  from 
the  time  of  the  Prophet  until  the  present,  one  would  think 
that  such  misrepresentations  as  those  spread  broadcast  by 
the  trouveres  would  have  found  little  acceptance,  or  have 
been  as  short-lived  as  they  were  false.  Had  the  object  of 
the  trouveres  been  to  perpetuate  animosity  among  Chris- 
tians toward  Moslems  they  could  not  have  devised  a  more 
effective  method  of  achieving  their  purpose. 


224  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

But  Mohammed  and  his  followers  had  to  be  discredited 
and  recourse  was  had  to  foul  means  as  well  as  fair.  Not 
satisfied  with  making  them  favor  what  they  always  consist- 
ently denounced,  trouveres  and  chroniclers  invented  a  most 
cruel  legend  regarding  the  death  of  the  Prophet.  Notwith- 
standing the  concordant  and  unquestioned  verdict  of  his- 
tory respecting  the  demise  of  Mohammed,  the  pilgrim 
Richard,  author  of  the  chanson  La  Conquete  de  Jerusalem, 
fabricates  the  odious  fable  that  the  founder  of  Islam  was 
devoured  by  swine  while  helplessly  inebriated."  And  this, 
despite  the  well-known  fact  that  Mohammed  was  during  his 
entire  reforming  career  as  much  opposed  to  the  use  of 
intoxicating  drinks  as  he  was  to  the  use  of  images !  Never- 
theless this  alleged  disgraceful  end  of  the  Prophet  is 
assigned  by  the  pilgrim  Richard  and  by  Guibert  de  Nogent 
in  his  *'Dei  Gesta  per  Francos'^  as  the  reason  why  Moham- 
medans never  eat  pork !  ^ 

I  call  special  attention  to  the  erroneous  notions  regarding 
Mohammed  and  Islam  which  pervade  the  pages  of  the 
chansons  de  geste,  as  they  are  samples  of  other  errors 
equally  preposterous  regarding  a  people  who  should  have 
been  better  understood,  and  as  they  help  to  explain  the 
origin  of  many  similar  misconceptions  which,  notwithstand- 
ing all  that  has  been  said  and  written  to  the  contrary,  still 
persist,  among  large  masses  of  people,  in  all  their  original 
force  and  crudeness. 

Even  long  after  the  time  of  the  trouveres  there  were  not 
wanting  historians  and  divines  who  were  willing  to  repeat 
the  silly  legends  of  the  chansons  de  geste  whenever  they 
thought  they  would  thereby  give  point  to  their  attacks  on 

^  A.  I.  joadi  s'ala  d'  un  fort  vin  enivrer; 
De  la  taverne  issi/  quant  il  s'en  volt  aler. 
En  une  place  vit.  I.  fumier  reverser; 
Mahomes  si  colcha,  ne  s'en  volt  treatorner: 
La  I'eatr angler ent  pore,  si  com  j'oi  conter; 
Por  ce  ne  volt  juis  de  char  de  pore  goster. 

Vv.  5547  et  seq.  (Paris,  1860). 
•  Porcorum  verum  esum,  justa  prorsus  ratione,  contemnunt  qui  morsibus 
eoniin  dominum  consumserunt.     Recueil  des  Historiens  des  Croisadea,  Tom. 
IV,  p.  130  (Paris,  1879). 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT  225 

the  Koran  or  the  Prophet.  Thus,  among  the  leaders  of  the 
Beformation,  the  distinguished  Orientalist,  Bibliander, 
seriously  institutes  a  comparison  between  Mohammed  and 
the  Devil.  Melancthon  declared  him  to  be  either  Gog  or 
Magog,  if  not  both  together/ 

Voltaire,  in  writing  of  the  Koran,  of  which  he  had  as 
superficial  an  acquaintance  as  of  many  other  things  which 
engaged  his  flippant  and  caustic  pen,  declared  it  to  be  '*Ce 
livre  unintelligible  qui  fait  fremir  le  sens  commun  a  chaque 
page" — that  unintelligible  book  which  makes  common  sense 
shudder  at  every  page.  And,  like  many  writers  before  and 
since  his  time,  he  was  fully  aware  that  his  fictions  were 
totally  at  variance  with  history.  But,  as  has  been  well 
expressed  by  Hurgronje,  **he  wanted  to  put  before  the  pub- 
lic an  armed  Tartuffe  and  thought  he  might  lay  the  part 
upon  Mohammed. ' '  * 

Others  again,  like  many  writers  of  our  own  day,  had  a 
political  as  well  as  a  religious  object  in  their  attacks  upon 
Islam.  For,  under  pretense  of  waging  war  against  the 
nefarious  tenets  and  practices  of  Moslemism,  they  secretly 
had  in  view  an  assault  on  the  Turkish  Empire,  or,  as  a  noted 
Swiss  Orientalist  long  ago  declared,  all  their  efforts  were 
really  directed  in  oppugnationem  Mahometance  perfidice  et 
Turcici  regni.* 

From  the  days  of  the  Crusaders  until  the  present  there 
has  been  no  cessation  of  the  campaign  of  vilification  of 
everything  Mohammedan  as  there  has  for  long  been  no 
abatement  in  political  hostility  on  the  part  of  certain 
nations  of  Europe  against  everything  Ottoman.  Centuries 
ago  the  cry  was  "Pestem  hanc  ferro  et  flamma  ah  orbe 

f  "As  a  sample  of  the  controversial  works  of  the  theologians  of  the  Re- 
formed Church  on  this  subject,"  Mr.  R.  B.  Smith  in  his  interesting  work  on 
Mohammed  and  Mohammedanism,  p.  79  (London,  1876),  calls  attention  to 
"the  following  modest  title-page  of  a  ponderous  work  written  in  1666:  Anti- 
Christus  Mahometes:  ubi  non  solum  per  Sanctam  Scripturam,  ac  Reforma- 
torum  testimonia,  verum  etiam  per  omnes  alios  probandi  modos  et  genera, 
plene,  fuse,  imvicte  solideque  demonstratur  Mahometem  esse  unum  ilium 
verum,  magnum  de  quo  in  Sacris  fit  mentio,  Antichristum." 

6  Mohammedanism,  p.  12  (New  York,  1916). 

9Hi8toria  Orientalis,  Dedicatio,  p.  5  (by  J.  H.  Hottinger,  Zurich,  1660). 


226  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

depellendam  esse" — the  pest  of  Islam  must  be  driven  from 
V  the  earth  by  fire  and  sword.  To-day  the  war  cry  is  in  Glad- 
stonian  phrase,  *  *  The  Turk  must,  bag  and  baggage,  get  out 
of  Europe.'*  How  much  of  truth  and  how  much  of  false- 
hood there  have  been  in  the  most  recent  outcries  against 
the  Moslems,  especially  against  those  living  in  the  Ottoman 
Empire,  will  be  determined  only  when  the  historian  shall 
be  free  from  the  violent  passions  and  the  selfish  interests 
and  the  age-long  antipathies  which  blind  the  writers  of  the 
present  as  they  have  blinded  those  of  the  past. 

In  the  preface  to  his  monumental  work  on  the  Koran,  the 
erudite  Padre  Lodovico  Marracci  laments  the  prevailing 
ignorance  of  his  time  regarding  everything  Mohammedan 
and  the  paucity  of  books  of  value  respecting  the  religion  and 
practices  of  so  large  a  part  of  mankind  as  the  adherents 
of  Islam. 

Although  [he  writes]  some  have  written  learnedly  and 
solidly  on  these  subjects,  there  is  nevertheless  no  concealing 
the  fact  that  others,  through  ignorance  of  things  Saracen, 
often  omit  the  truth  and  publish  fictitious  and  fabulous 
things,  which  excite  the  laughter  of  the  Mohammedans  and 
cause  them  to  become  more  obstinate  in  their  error.^** 

But,  notwithstanding  Marracci 's  eloquent  plea  for  a  more 
thorough  study  of  Islam,  his  words  fell,  for  the  most  part, 
on  deaf  ears.^^  It  was  not  until  our  own  epoch  that  a 
critical  investigation  of  the  Koran  was  begun  and  that 
a  really  impartial  inquiry  into  the  life  of  Mohammed  was 
seriously  undertaken.    Men  were  still  in  doubt  as  to  the 

10  "Quod  vero  dissimulandum  non  est,  licet  quidam  docte,  satis  solideque 
Bcripserint,  nonnulli  ex  rerum  Sarracenicarum  ignorantia,  vera  plerumque 
omittentes,  ficta  ac  fabulosa  in  medium  protulerunt,  quae  Mahumetanis  risus 
excitarent  eosque  in  errore  suo  obstinatiores  eflBcerent."  Aloorani  Textua 
Vniveraus,  Tom.  I,  p.  1  (Patavii,  1698). 

11  Referring  to  the  widespread  errors  concerning  Mohammed  and  his  teach- 
ings the  eminent  Orientalist,  Adrian  Reland,  wrote  more  than  two  centuries 
ago:  "Quotidie  magis  magisque  experior  mundum  decipi  velle  et  praeconceptis 
opinionibus  regi" — ^I  daily  become  more  and  more  convinced  that  the  world 
wishes  to  be  deceived  and  is  governed  by  preconceived  opinions.  De  Religione 
Mohammedica,  p.  xxii  (Utrecht,  1705).  Is  there  not  still  room  for  improve- 
ment in  this  respect? 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT  227 

true  character  of  the  Arabian  reformer  and  were  still 
undecided  as  to  whether  he  was 

Hero,  impostor,  fanatic,  priest  or  sage. 

All,  however,  were  forced  to  admit  that  he  must  have 
been  a  man  of  extraordinary  power  and  influence  to  set  in 
motion  that  mighty  human  current  which  only  a  little  more 
than  a  century  after  his  death  had  founded  an  empire  which 
extended  from  the  Tigris  to  the  Gaudilquivir  and  from  the 
burning  sands  of  Yemen  to  the  chilly  steppes  of  Turkestan. 
Yet,  although  the  scholarly  works  of  Sprenger,  Margoli- 
outh.  Prince  Caetani,  and  Noldeke-Schwally  have  thrown  a 
flood  of  light  on  many  formerly  obscure  points  in  the  life 
of  the  Prophet  and  elucidated  many  previously  disputed 
passages  of  the  Koran,  there  is  still  as  much  discussion 
as  ever  regarding  the  nature  of  Mohammed's  religious 
vocation.  Some  contend  that  it  was  the  result  of  halluci- 
nation, others  of  epilepsy,  others  of  psychopathic  abnor- 
mality, others  of  auto-hypnosis,  while,  as  a  result  of  long 
researches,  Aloys  Sprenger  is  quite  sure  that  the  Prophet 
was  a  victim  of  muscular  hysteria.^^ 

But  however  much  controversy  there  may  be  respecting 
the  origin  of  Mohammed's  self-styled  mission  or  the  nature 
of  the  mental  disease  from  which  he  is  said  to  have  suf- 
fered, there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  about  the  essence  of 
his  teaching  as  incorporated  in  the  Koran.  For  the  creed 
of  Islam  is  so  simple  that,  as  has  been  said,  **it  can  be 
written  on  a  fingernail. ' ' 

The  five  duties  of  Islam,  which  means  resignation  to  the 
will  of  God,  as  declared  by  Mohammed,  are  as  follows : 

1.  Bearing  witness  that  there  is  but  one  God; 

2.  Reciting  the  daily  prayers; 

3.  Giving  the  legal  alms; 

12  "Mohammed  litt  an  einer  Krankheit,  welche  in  jener  ausgepragten  Form, 
wie  bei  ihm,  in  unseren  Gegenden  bisweilen  bei  Frauen,  aber  selten  bei  Man- 
nern  vorkommt,  Mann  hat  ihr  verschiedene  Namen  gegeben;  Schonlein  heisst 
flie  hysteria  muscularis."    Op.  cit..  Vol.  I,  p.  207. 


228  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

4.  Observing  the  Ramazan  or  the  month's  fast; 

5.  Making  the  pilgrimage  to  Mecca  once  in  a  lifetime. 

Li  view  of  the  clearness  and  simplicity  of  this  creed,  it  is 
difficult  to  understand  how  the  Western  World  has  so  sig- 
nally failed  to  comprehend  the  real  nature  of  Mohammed's 
teaching.  It  is  equally  difficult  to  conceive  how  the  authors 
of  the  countless  books  on  the  Prophet  and  his  religion  could 
have  been  honest  and  sincere  when  they  penned  their 
diatribes  against  Mohammed  or  pronounced  their  bitter  and 
ludicrous  invectives  against  his  followers  and  the  religion 
to  which  they  were  so  ardently  attached.  Had  they  been 
actuated  by  a  spirit  of  fairness  and  Christian  charity  they 
could  so  easily  have  ascertained  the  truth  about  the  doctrine 
which  they  so  strangely  misrepresented  and  the  people 
whom  they  so  pitilessly  maligned.  For  there  never  was  a 
time  since  the  day  Saladin  entered  the  Holy  City  of  Jeru- 
salem accompanied  by  its  bishop,  who  had  gone  out  to  greet 
the  humane  conqueror ;  never  a  time  since  the  Poverello  of 
Assisi  went  as  a  missionary  to  the  Sultan  of  Egypt,  when 
men  of  good  will,  seeking  the  truth  and  nothing  but  the 
truth,  might  not  have  had  all  the  information  desired  both 
about  the  doctrines  of  Islam  and  the  practices  of  the  mil- 
lions who  looked  upon  Mohammed  as  directly  commissioned 
by  God  to  teach  them  the  way  to  Heaven. 

Those  who  always  exhibited  such  readiness  to  defame 
Islam  and  its  followers  should  have  recalled  the  words  of 
St.  Augustine  when  he  declares  that  ' '  there  is  no  false  doc- 
trine which  does  not  contain  something  of  truth."  "  They 
should  have  given  heed  to  the  counsels  of  the  learned  and 
zealous  Father  Marracci,  who,  guided  by  the  experiences 
among  the  Mohammedans  of  his  brothers  in  religion,  taught 
them  how  they  might  bring  the  followers  of  Islam  to  a 
knowledge  of  the  Gospel  and  to  a  love  of  the  Crucified.  Had 
they  done  so  there  would  not  be  that  inveterate  hatred  that 
now  exists  between  the  Cross  and  the  Crescent,  and  there 

13  "Nulla   porro   falsa   doctrina    est   quae   non    aliqua    vera    intermisceat." 
Qucest,  Evang.  II.  40. 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PEESENT  229 

would  not  be  that  separation  into  two  hostile  camps  of  so 
many  hundred  millions  of  people  who  normally  should 
be  in  the  same  fold  and  under  the  same  Shepherd. 

For,  contrary  to  what  has  been  so  often  said  and  written 
during  the  last  thousand  years  and  more,  there  is  much, 
very  much  good  in  Islam.  No  less  an  authority  than  the 
illustrious  Cardinal  Hergenroether  declares : 

Islamism  ought  to  prepare  for  civilization  the  peoples 
most  advanced  in  barbarism,  notably  those  of  Africa.  Those 
peoples  whom  it  is  necessary  to  lead  from  fetishism  to 
monotheism  are  in  their  low  degree  of  culture  and  brutal 
sensualism  materially  aided  by  such  a  stepping-stone  in 
their  transition  to  Christianity.^* 

When  Mohammed  began  his  marvelous  career  of  religious 
reform  his  countrymen  in  Arabia  were,  in  many  respects, 
as  deeply  sunk  in  vice  as  the  most  debased  tribes  of  Central 
Africa.  They  were  idolaters  who  were  addicted  to  the 
grossest  and  most  absurd  fetishism.  Trees,  stones,  shape- 
less masses  of  dough  and  the  most  trivial  things  in  nature 
were  objects  of  adoration.  There  was  a  special  divinity  for 
each  of  the  countless  tribes  of  the  peninsula.  In  Beit- Alia — 
House  of  God — in  Mecca,  there  was  a  different  idol  for  each 
day  of  the  year.  Here  also  was  the  most  jealously  guarded 
object  of  worship — a  black  stone  that  was  reputed  to  have 
fallen  from  heaven  in  the  days  of  Adam — a  stone  which, 
it  was  averred,  was  originally  of  immaculate  whiteness,  but 

'^* Handbuch  der  allgemeinen  Kirchengeachicte,  Vol.  I,  p.  748  (Freiburg  im 
Breisgau,  1884). 

''It  can  be  readily  understood  how  the  sight  of  the  Muslim  trader  at  prayer, 
his  frequent  prostrations,  his  absorbed  and  silent  worship  of  the  Unseen, 
would  impress  the  heathen  African,  endowed  with  that  strong  sense  of  the 
mysterious  such  as  generally  accompanies  a  low  stage  of  civilization.  Curi- 
osity would  naturally  prompt  inquiry  and  the  knowledge  of  Islam  thus  im- 
parted might  sometimes  win  over  a  convert  who  might  have  turned  aside 
had  it  been  offered  unsought,  as  a  free  gift."    The  Preaching  of  Islam,  p.  418 

(by  T.  W.  Arnold,  London,  1913). 

This  view  was  emphasized  by  good  old  Father  Marracci  more  than  two 
centuries  ago  when  he  wrote:  "Si  ethnicus  humani  intellectus  captum  exce- 
dentia,  vel  natural!  conditioni  et  imbecilitati  dificillima,  si  non  impossibilia, 

■    .    .    cum  Alcoranica  doctrina  comparaverit,  statim  ab  his  refugiet  et  ad 
ilia  obviifl  ulnig  accurret."     Op.  cit.,  Tpm.  II,  p.  9. 


230  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

which  was  subsequently  blackened  by  the  myriad  oscula- 
tions of  its  sinful  worshipers. 

Nor  was  this  all.  Not  only  were  the  Arabians  noted  for 
their  loathsome  idolatry  but  also  for  their  inhuman  practice 
of  disposing  of  female  children  at  their  birth  by  burying 
them  alive.  And  so  great  was  their  superstition  that  it  was 
not  an  infrequent  occurrence  for  a  father  to  sacrifice  his 
child  to  appease  the  fancied  anger  of  an  offended  deity. 
Besides  this,  blood  feuds,  sensuality  of  the  vilest  kind, 
drunkenness,  and  utter  disregard  of  even  the  natural  rights 
of  women  were  as  rampant  as  their  general  results  were 
widespread  and  fatal. 

When  Mohammed  set  out  to  preach  monotheism  to  these 
people  who  were  so  steeped  in  every  vice — people  who  had 
heard  the  Gospel  but  had  long  abandoned  its  sublime  teach- 
ings for  the  abominable  practices  of  idolatry,  he  encoun- 
tered the  strongest  opposition  from  all  quarters.  So 
relentless  was  the  hostility  displayed  by  friend  and  foe 
that  his  projected  reform  seemed  foredoomed.  But,  not- 
withstanding the  jeers  which  greeted  him  on  every  side  and 
the  persecutions  which  he  endured  for  years,  he  was  eventu- 
ally successful  beyond  his  most  sanguine  expectations. 

Here  we  have  the  spectacle  of  a  man  that  could  neither 
read  nor  write  who,  after  twenty  years  of  incessant  strug- 
gle, had  succeeded  in  extirpating  a  system  of  idolatry  which, 
by  fostering  morals  the  most  depraved  and  practices  the 
most  hideous,  had  for  centuries  made  the  fairest  parts  of 
Arabia  reeking  sinks  of  iniquity.  In  place  of  a  blighting 
and  debasing  fetishism  he  substituted  the  worship  of  one 
God,  the  Greater  of  heaven  and  earth — a  God  who  is  eternal, 
omnipotent,  merciful;  who  presides  over  the  destinies  of 
all  His  creatures ;  who  sees  all  their  actions,  even  the  most 
secret;  who  punishes  the  wicked  in  another  world  and  re- 
wards the  good,  and  who  never  abandons  them  for  a  single 
instant  either  in  this  life  or  in  the  one  to  come.  He  preaches 
submission,  the  most  humble  and  the  most  confiding  sub- 
mission, to  the  holy  will  of  Him  who  is  not  only  the  Author 
of  their  existence  but  also  their  unfailing  support  and  their 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT  231 

just  and  omniscient  judge.  And  the  sole  worship  which 
the  Mussuhnan  is  required  to  give  to  this  one  God  is  prayer 
at  stated  periods  of  the  day  and  an  annual  fast  during  the 
month  of  Ramadan — a  fast  which  is  designed  to  direct  his 
thoughts  to  Him  who  has  created  him,  who  sustains  him 
during  life  and  who,  for  weal  or  for  woe,  will  be  his 
Sovereign  Lord  after  death. 

Such  essentially  is  Islam  in  all  its  simplicity  as  preached 
to  the  Arabian  world  by  the  unlettered  camel  driver  of 
Mecca ;  such  the  doctrine  which  was  destined  to  be  adopted 
by  many  races  and  nations  in  every  clime.  There  is  nothing 
new  in  it.  Mohammed  never  pretended  to  introduce  any- 
thing new.  He  simply  proclaimed  to  his  benighted  country- 
men not  a  new  revelation,  but,  as  he  always  insisted,  the 
long-forgotten  faith  of  Abraham  and  Moses  and  Christ,  as 
he  understood  it. 

With  the  exception,  therefore,  of  Christianity,  based  on 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  with  all  its  marvelous  and 
beneficent  consequences,  there  is  no  religion  in  the  world 
which  can  justly  be  compared  with  Islam  or  which  even 
remotely  deserves  to  be  placed  in  the  same  category.^" 

And,  with  the  exception  of  Christianity  and  Judaism,  it 
is  the  only  religion  in  the  world  which  has  recognized  and 
consecrated  monotheism.  It  is,  therefore,  far  superior  to 
the  debasing  paganism  of  Greece  and  Rome.  It  is  loftier 
and  nobler  than  the  repugnant  dualism  of  Zoroaster  and 
the  selfish  and  materialistic  utilitarianism  of  Confucius. 
It  is  incomparably  more  elevating  than  the  fantastic 
metempsychosis  and  the  atheistic  Nirvana  of  Gautama 
Buddha,  which,  with  Confucianism,  holds  in  spiritual  bond- 
age a  great  majority  of  the  teeming  millions  of  Central  and 
Eastern  Asia. 

The  eminent  doctor  of  the  Church,  St.  John  of  Damascus, 
shows  how  near  he  considers  Islam  to  Christianity  when, 
in  his  account  of  the  creed  of  Mohammed,  he  treats  it  as  a 

IS  Cf.  J.  Barth^lemy  Saint-Hilaire,  pp.  cit.,  p.  z. 


232  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

heresy  analogous  to  Arianism."  Peter  the  Venerable,  the 
illustrious  Abbot  of  Cluny,  the  first  one  to  have  a  transla- 
tion made  of  the  Koran,  was  of  a  similar  opinion,  as  is 
evinced  in  his  work  against  Mohammedanism — a  work 
which  treats  not  of  the  paganism  but  of  the  heresy  of  the 
Saracens,  as  its  title — Adversus  Nefandam  Hceresim  sive 
Sectam  Saracenorum — conclusively  indicates."  In  like 
manner  Dante,  who  was  almost  as  distinguished  as  a  theo- 
logian as  he  was  as  a  poet,  places  Mohammed  in  hell  not  as 
a  heathen  but  as  a  sower  of  ''scandal  and  schism. "^^ 

Arius,  by  denying  the  divinity  of  Christ,  had  prepared 
the  way  for  Islam,  which  saw  in  the  Son  of  God  only  a 
prophet  who,  as  Moslems  subsequently  claimed,  was  but 
the  precursor  of  Mohammed.  St,  Jerome,  in  his  memorable 
words — Igemuit  totus  orbis  et  Arianum  se  esse  miratus 
est — the  world  uttered  a  sigh  and  was  astonished  to  find 
itself  Arian — expressed  the  one-time  prevalence  of  the 
errors  of  the  Alexandrine  heresiarch.  The  grave  dissen- 
sions in  the  churches  of  Asia  and  Africa  that  followed  close 
upon  dissemination  of  the  heresy  of  Arius  immensely 
assisted  Islam  in  its  lightning  career  of  conquest.  For  the 
divided  and  degenerate  Christians  of  these  two  continents 
were  easily  persuaded  that  Moslemism  was  but  one  of  the 
various  Christian  sects  and  not  a  new  religion. 

The  followers  of  Mohammed  were  formerly  the  victims 
of  calumny  on  account  of  their  alleged  beliefs  and  practices. 
Now  it  is  the  organization  of  Islam  and  the  character  of  its 
religious  services  that  seem  to  give  rise  to  the  most  mis^ 
understandings. 

Thus,  according  to  many  modern  writers,  the  Sultan  of 

18  De  Heresibus  Liber,  Patrologia  GrcBca,  Vol.  XVIV,  Col.  763  et  seq.  (Migne 
Edition). 

17  "Summa  vero  hujua  hseresis  intentio  est  ut  Christus  Dominus  ut  neque 
Deus  neque  Dei  Filius  esse  credatur;  sed  licet  magnus  Deoque  dilectus  homo 
tamen  purus  et  vir  quidem  sapiens  et  propheta  maximus  Quae  quidem  olim 
diaboli  machinatione  concepta  primo  per  Arium  seminata  deinde  per  istum 
Satanam,  scilicet  Machumet,  provecta,  per  Anti-christum  vero  ex  toto  secun- 
dum diabolicam  intentionem  complebitur."  Petri  Venerabilis  Opera  Omnia, 
col.  655,  Patrologia  Latina,  Vol,  Tom.  CLXXXIX   (Migne  Edition). 

i8"Seminator  di  scandalo  e  di  scisma."      Inferno,  XXVIII,  35. 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT  233 

Turkey  is  to  Islam  what  the  Pope  is  to  Christendom.  Noth- 
ing, however,  could  be  farther  from  the  truth.  That  the 
caliphate,  whether  of  the  Ottoman,  Ommiad,  or  Abbassid 
dynasties,  is  in  no  way  comparable  with  the  Papacy  is 
clearly  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  Islam  has  never  in  all 
its  history  regarded  the  Caliph  as  its  spiritual  head."^' 

Again  the  same  writers,  as  well  as  many  modern  trav- 
elers, constantly  refer  to  the  priests  and  the  clergy  of 
Mohammedanism.  The  fact  is  that  Islam  has  not  and  never 
has  had  anything  like  a  clerical  body  as  it  is  understood  in 
the  Christian  world.  There  is  no  ordination,  no  priesthood 
with  powers  to  bind  and  loose,  no  confessional,  no  baptismal 
font,  no  altar,  no  sacrifice,  no  mediator  between  man  and 
God.  There  is  in  fact  no  one  possessing  any  special  powers 
through  ordination  to  perform  any  act  that  any  adherent 
of  Islam  could  not  as  rightfully  perform.  For,  Islam,  as 
has  been  well  said,  is  and  has  always  been  * '  the  lay  religion 
par  excellence."  There  are,  it  is  true,  the  Khatib — 
preacher — and  the  imam — leader  in  prayer — but  neither 
the  one  nor  the  other  possesses  anything  whatever  of  the 
sacerdotal  character  of  the  Christian  priesthood  or  of 
the  hereditary  Levites  of  ancient  Judaism.^"  They  are 
usually  selected  on  account  of  their  grave  deportment  and 
their  knowledge  of  the  Koran  and  of  the  traditions  of  Islam, 
but  otherwise  they  might  be  replaced  by  a  mufti  or  kadi 
whose  occupations  are  analogous  to  our  lawyer  or  judge. 
The  chief  purpose  of  the  imam,  whose  function  closely 


19  C.  Snouck  Hurgronje,  Mohammedanism,  p.  129,  et  seq.  (New  York,  1916). 

20  The  duty  of  the  imam  "is  to  stand  in  front  of  the  congregation,  facing 
the  Kibleh  or  Mecca-pointing  niche,  at  the  appointed  hours  of  devotion,  that 
is  ordinarily,  as  every  one  knows,  five  times  a  day,  when  he  recites  aloud  the 
public  prayers,  marks  time  for  the  various  devotional  postures,  and,  in  a  word, 
acts  as  fugleman  to  the  worshipers  ranged  behind  him,  from  whom,  how- 
ever, he  is  distinguished  by  no  special  dress,  caste  or  character!  Primus  inter 
pares;  but  nothing  more.  The  Khatib.  or  preacher,  usually  reads  out  of  an 
old,  well-thumbed  manuscript  sermon  book,  or,  though  much  more  rarely, 
delivers  extempore  the  Friday  discourse,  a  short  performance,  seldom  exceed- 
ing ten  minutes  in  duration  .  .  .  Once  outside  the  mosque,  the  imam,  the 
khatib,  or  whoever  else  may  have  officiated  during  the  prayers,  is  a  house- 
mason,  a  green-grocer,  or  pipe-maker,  or  anything  else,  as  before."  Essays  on 
Eastern  Questions,  p.  91,  et  aeq.  (by  W.  6.  Palgrave,  London,  1872). 


234  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

resembles  that  of  a  precentor,  is  to  preserve  order  in  public 
worship.  But  whether  the  religious  functions  of  the  Mos- 
lems be  performed  by  imams,  khatibs,  mollas,  or  any  of  that 
large  class  of  functionaries  known  as  ulema,  there  are  no 
gradational  distinctions  among  the  worshipers  themselves. 
The  ulema  may  act  like  priests  and  may  sometimes  be  con- 
sidered as  priests  by  uninformed  people,  but  the  ulema 
themselves,  who  ought  to  know,  strongly  and  consistently 
insist  on  their  non-priestly  character.  So  alien,  indeed,  is 
all  classification  to  Moslemism,  so  abhorrent  to  Islam  is  the 
very  idea  of  an  ecclesiastical  organization  as  distinct  from 
the  laity,  that  Palgrave,  whose  long  and  intimate  inter- 
course with  the  Mohammedans  made  him  thoroughly 
familiar  with  all  the  details  of  their  creed,  did  not  hesitate 
when  referring  to  their  religious  organization,  to  declare, 
*'  'Each  one  for  himself  and  God  for  us  all'  is  an  almost 
literal  translation  of  what  the  Koran  sums  up  and  a  hun- 
dred traditions  confirm. ' ' " 

The  erroneous  notions  that  so  generally  prevail  respect- 
ing the  real  object  of  mosques  are  as  numerous  as  those 
respecting  its  khatibs  and  imams.  The  primary  use  of  a 
mosque  is  to  indicate  the  direction  of  Mecca.  Originally 
it  was  a  simple  platform  with  a  wall  at  the  end  facing  Mecca. 
In  facing  this  wall  the  worshiper  looked  towards  what  was 
to  him  the  holiest  city  in  the  world.  In  southern  climates 
this  primitive  type  of  mosque  "  suflBciently  answered  the 
chief  purpose  contemplated.  But  the  more  rigorous  climates 
of  the  north  required  roofed  places  of  worship,  which 
eventually  developed  into  the  magnificent  structures  which 
one  now  finds  in  onia,  Brusa,  and  Constantinople,  as  well 
as  in  cities  much  farther  south,  such  as  Damascus  and  Cairo 
and  Jerusalem. 

But  the  reverence  which  a  Mussulman  entertains  for 
his  mosque  and  that  which  a  Roman  Catholic  feels  for  his 

21  Op.  cit,  p.  82. 

22  The  word  "mosque"  is  derived  from  the  Arabic  maajid  which  signifies  a 
place  of  worship. 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT  235 

church  are  entirely  different  in  character.  There  is,  in  the 
eyes  of  a  Catholic,  a  sanctity  attaching  to  a  church  that  does 
not  and  cannot  attach  to  a  mosque.  This,  is  shown  by  the 
names  given  to  the  two  places  of  worship.  A  common  name 
for  mosque  is  Jami,  which  means  a  meeting  house,  while 
the  word  church,  derived  from  the  Greek,  signifies  the  house 
of  God — To  KvpiaKov.  In  a  Moslem's  view  God  is  present 
in  the  jami  or  mosque,  but  only  as  he  is  present  everywhere 
else — in  the  field,  on  the  mountain.  But  in  the  church, 
according  to  Catholic  teaching,  God  is  really  and  truly 
present  under  the  veil  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  Hence 
all  the  pomp  and  ceremony  of  the  Catholic  ritual,  all 
the  gorgeousness  of  decoration  which  so  distinguishes  the 
Catholic  house  of  God  from  the  Mussulman  meeting  house. 
Because  of  the  Sacramental  Presence  every  Catholic  church 
is  called  the  house  of  God.  But  among  Mohammedans  there 
is  only  one  specifically  recognized  Beith  Allah — ^house  of 
God.  This  is  the  Kaaba  at  Mecca,  which  contains  the  Black 
Stone  which  was  for  ages  an  object  of  idolatrous  worship 
and  which  is  even  to-day  the  chief  est  object  of  Mohammedan 
veneration,  if  not  also  of  downright  superstition.  It  is 
because  of  the  presence  of  this  old  pagan  fetish  in  the 
Kaaba,"  as  well  as  on  account  of  the  fantastic  legends 
which  are  associated  with  the  Kaaba  itself,  that  the  Mos- 
lem, when  praying,  always  turns  toward  Mecca.  It  is  this 
Kebla — the  direction  of  the  Kaaba  in  Mecca — that  is  care- 
fully indicated  by  the  niche  or  mihrab  in  the  interior  wall 
of  every  mosque.  For  a  time  the  Kebla  was  changed  from 
Mecca  to  the  rock  in  Jerusalem,  on  which  Solomon's  temple 
was  erected,  but,  whether  from  policy  or  atavism,  Moham- 
med changed  it  back  again  to  its  original  location.  By  so 
doing  he  virtually  reduced  Islam  to  a  national  religion — 
the  religion  of  Arabia — instead  of  making  it,  as  he  had 
dreamed,  the  religion  of  the  world. 

28  For  a  full  description  of  Beith  Allah — house  of  God — and  the  holy  Kaaba, 
"Navel  of  the  World,"  as  the  Arabian  geographer,  Ibn  Haukal,  calls  it,  see 
Sir  Richard  Burton's  A  Pilgrimage  to  El  Medina  and  Mecca,  Chaps. 
XXIV,  XXV. 


236  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Again,  the  mosque,  unlike  tlie  church,  is  never  the  center 
of  that  kind  of  religious  organization  which  we  know  as  a 
parish.  There  is  no  congregation  comprising  those  who 
worship  in  a  particular  mosque.  Nor  have  the  imams  and 
khatibs  any  jurisdiction,  like  that  of  a  Catholic  pastor,  over 
those  who  assemble  in  the  mosque  for  prayer.  Worship 
in  the  mosque  may  be  called  congregational  only  in  so  far 
as  certain  individuals,  who  happen  to  gather  there,  unite  in 
prayer  to  Allah  under  the  direction  of  the  imam,  but  it  is 
nevertheless  individual,  as  no  Moslem  has  closer  affiliations 
with  one  mosque  than  with  another.  Wherever  he  happens 
to  be  when  the  muezzin  calls  for  prayer,  there  is  his  mosque 
and  there  he  joins  with  his  fellows  in  worship. 

In  the  Ottoman  Empire  the  imam,  so  far  as  he  is  charged 
with  special  functions,  is  no  more  than  a  paid  servant. 
Outside  of  acting  as  precentor,  or  fugleman,  at  prayer  his 
chief  duties  are  to  officiate  at  marriages  and  funerals. 
There  is  none  of  that  spiritual  relationship  which  exists 
between  the  Catholic  priest  and  his  parishioners ;  none  of 
that  love  of  a  father  for  his  children,  and  none  of  that  affec- 
tion of  children  for  their  father,  which  exists  in  every 
Catholic  parish ;  no  one  who  is  in  any  sense  the  shepherd 
of  his  flock — to  assist  the  weak,  to  direct  the  erring,  to 
admonish  the  remiss,  to  upbraid  the  sinner,  and  lead  those 
aspiring  to  holiness  to  higher  degrees  of  perfection  in  the 
spiritual  life.  Far  from  feeling  the  need  of  such  a  guide 
and  superior,  the  Moslem  prides  himself  on  his  ability  to 
dispense  with  such  aids  which  he  would  regard  as  curtailing 
his  religious  liberty  and  circumscribing  his  independence 
of  action.  He  prefers  to  lead  his  own  life,  without  let  or 
hindrance,  without  monitors  or  directors,  and  to  be  free, 
if  so  disposed,  to  follow  those  votaries  of  pleasure  in  other 
parts  of  the  world,  who 

Compound  for  sins  that  they're  inclined  to 
By  damning  those  they  have  no  mind  to. 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT  237 

But  one  cannot  fully  understand  the  religious  spirit  of 
the  Mussulman  without  knowing  something  of  the  prayers 
which  he  is  wont  to  address  to  the  Deity.  No  class  of  men, 
probably,  have  the  name  of  God — Allah — more  frequently 
on  their  lips  than  the  Moslems.  This  is  particularly  true  of 
those  devotees — and  their  number  is  legion — known  as 
dervishes. 

Prayer  five  times  a  day  is  the  second  of  the  five  pillars 
of  Islam.  At  dawn,  at  midday,  in  the  afternoon,  evening 
and  night  the  Muezzin  ascends  the  minaret  and  repeats  in 
a  loud  voice: 

God  is  great.  I  bear  witness  that  there  is  no  god  but 
God.  I  bear  witness  that  Mohammed  is  the  apostle  of  God. 
Come  to  prayers !    Come  to  salvation  I 

But  prayer  may  be  said  only  when  the  clothes  and  body 
of  the  worshiper  as  well  as  the  place  of  prayer  are  free 
from  all  impurity.  Moreover,  the  prayers,  whether  said 
privately  or  in  common,  must  be  recited  according  to  a  pre- 
scribed form  and  in  specified  postures  from  which  there 
can  be  no  deviation.  There  are  constant  repetitions  of  the 
words  **God  is  great,'*  "I  extol  the  holiness  of  my  Lord, 
the  Most  High.'' 

Holiness  to  Thee,  0  God! 
And  praise  be  to  Thee! 
Or  eat  is  Thy  name! 
Great  is.  Thy  greatness! 
There  is  no  deity  hut  Thee! 

A  devout  Mussulman  will  recite  these  and  similar  forms 
of  prayer  no  less  than  seventy-five  times  a  day.  But  these 
words,  which  admit  of  no  variety  or  change,  become,  after 
ceaseless  repetition,  rather  a  mechanical  than  a  mental  act 
and  are  frequently  more  in  the  nature  of  lip  service  than 
the  prayer  of  the  Christian,  which  consists  not  only  in  acts 
of  praise,  as  in  the  above  words  of  the  Moslem  worshiper, 


238  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

but  also  in  acts  of  impetration  and  thanksgiving.  The  Mos- 
lem's nearest  approach  to  a  Christian  prayer  is  the  first 
sura  of  the  Koran,  called  the  Fatihah,  which  reads : 

Praise  he  to  Ood,  Lord  of  all  the  worlds, 
The  compassionate,  the  merciful. 
King  of  the  day  of  reckoning! 
Thee  only  do  we  worship,  and  to  Thee 

only  do  we  cry  for  help, 
Guide  thou  us  in  the  straight  path, 
The  path  of  these  to  whom  Thou  hast 

teen  gracious. 
With  whom  Thou  art  not  angry, 
And  who  go  not  astray.  Amen. 

But  we  have  only  to  compare  this  prayer — ^which  has 
been  called  **the  quintessence  of  the  whole  Koran" — ^with 
the  "Our  Father"  to  see  the  vast  difference  between  the 
prayer  of  the  Christian  and  that  of  the  Mohammedan.  It  is 
manifest  in  the  very  first  word  of  the  Pater  Noster,  which 
shows  that  there  is  no  comparison  between  the  Christian 
and  the  Moslem  conception  of  God.  Mohammed  believed 
in  God,  feared  and  obeyed  Him  according  to  his  light,  but, 
not  recognizing  His  Fatherhood,  he  did  not  and,  from  his 
view  of  the  Deity,  could  not  love  Him.  It  is  so  with  his  fol- 
lowers. Their  God  is  a  God  of  fear,  not  a  God  of  love, 
because  not  known  as  God  Our  Father.  How  different  is 
this  from  the  relationship — sonship — of  the  Christian  to  his 
Creator,  who  enjoys  the  blessed  privilege  of  calling  God 
Ahha — ^Father. 

Denying  the  Fathership  of  God,  Moslem  theologians 
maintain  that  it  is  impossible  for  men  to  love  Him.  Man 
and  God,  they  contend,  are  of  different  natures,  and  where 
there  is  a  difference  of  genus  there  can  be  no  love.  The 
nearest  approach  to  love,  they  contend,  is  man's  persever- 
ance in  obedience  to  Allah. 

Again,  according  to  the  same  theologians,  there  can  be 
no  love  of  God  for  man,  for  love,  say  they,  implies  change, 
which,  as  God  is  infinitely  perfect,  is  impossible.    When 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PEESENT  239 

God  therefore  is  said  to  love  man,  all  that  is  meant,  accord- 
ing to  Al-Gazali,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  Moslem  theolo- 
gians and  philosophers,  is  that  ''God  so  affects  man  that 
man  comes  to  God."" 

But  in  this  case,  as  in  so  many  others,  the  common  sense — 
or  shall  we  call  it  a  special  divine  illumination? — of  many 
in  Islam  has  enabled  them  to  arrive  at  a  truer  conception 
of  God  and  of  their  relations  to  Him  than  was  ever  attained 
by  Moslem  philosophers  and  casuists  and  incomparably 
superior  to  anything  found  in  the  Koran  or  in  the  tradi- 
tional teachings  of  Mohammed. 

As  a  proof  of  this  assertion,  I  need  only  adduce  the  beauti- 
ful prayer  of  the  Persian  imam.  El  Kachiri,  who,  discarding 
the  cold  and  formal  acts  of  praise  prescribed  in  Moslem 
worship,  pours  forth  his  soul  to  God  in  these  touching  and 
heart-felt  words : 

Thou,  0  Lord,  threatenest  me,  with  a  bitter  separation 
which  will  forever  deprive  me  of  Thy  presence !  0  Lord, 
do  with  me  as  Thou  wilt,  provided  that  I  be  not  forever  sep- 
arated from  Thee!  There  is  no  more  bitter  nor  fatal 
poison  than  this  separation.  For  what  can  a  soul  sepa- 
rated from  God  do  except  be  in  a  state  of  inquietude  and 
agitation  which  will  be  a  continual  torment?  One  would 
rather  suffer  a  hundred  thousand  deaths;  for,  after  all, 
they  would  not  offer  anything  so  terrible  as  the  privation  of 
the  vision  of  Thy  divine  face.  All  the  evils  of  the  world, 
all  the  most  acute  and  painful  diseases  joined  together, 
seem  to  me  incomparably  easier  to  bear  than  this  removal 
from  Thee.  It  is  this  transitory  removal  which  renders  our 
lands  sterile ;  which  dries  up  and  infects  our  waters.  What 
would  it  be  if  it  were  eternal?  Without  it,  the  fire  of  hell 
would  not  burn ;  it  is  through  it  that  it  becomes  so  hot.  In 
a  word,  it  is  only  Thy  presence  which  sustains  us  and  show- 
ers upon  us  all  kinds  of  good  things  and  Thy  absence,  it  is, 
which  causes  all  the  evils  of  hell.'^' 

2*  Cf.  Aspects  of  Islam,  p.  199  et  seq.  (by  D.  B.  MacDonald,  New  York, 
1911). 

'^  Biblioth^que  Orientale,  Tom.  II,  p.  81  (by  Barthfelemy  d'Herbelot,  The 
Hague,  1777). 


240  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON  , 

This  prayer  is  fully  in  keeping  with  the  teaching  of  many 
other  Moslem  mystics  of  non-Semitic  origin,  who,  contrary 
to  the  vulgar  notions  so  widely  entertained  respecting  the 
Mohammedan  paradise,  explicitly  declare  that  the  infinite 
happiness  of  the  elect  in  heaven  consists  in  the  enjoyment 
of  the  beatific  vision.  This  ineffable  happiness,  they  aver, 
so  far  transcends  all  the  other  joys  of  paradise  that  they 
completely  disappear  before  it.  "Paradise,  0  Lord,"  ex- 
claims the  Sheik  el  Alem,  **is  desirable  only  because  one 
there  sees  Thee ;  because,  without  the  light  of  Thy  beauty, 
it  would  pall  on  us. "  ^" 

These  two  quotations  are  remarkable  but  no  less  so  than 
the  words  of  a  Mussulman  poet  of  Persia  who,  in  addressing 
himself  to  Isa — ^Arabic  for  Jesus — says : 

The  heart  of  the  afflicted  man  draws  all  his  consolation 
•  from  Thy  words.  The  soul  resumes  life  and  vigor  simply 
by  hearing  Thy  name  pronounced.  If  the  mind  of  man  is 
ever  able  to  raise  itself  to  the  contemplation  of  the  mys- 
teries of  the  Divinity,  it  is  from  Thee  that  it  draws  the  light 
to  know  them  and  it  is  Thou  that  givest  him  the  attraction 
by  which  he  is  penetrated.^^ 

How  like  the  language  of  a  Christian  speaking  of  the  grace 
of  our  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ! 

Far  less  excusable  than  ignorance  of  Moslem  doctrine 
and  practices,  is  the  disposition  everywhere  manifested  in 
Europe  and  America  to  regard  Islam  not  only  as  a  disin- 
tegrating organization  but  also  as  a  decaying  power.  Those 
who  thus  minimize  the  ever-growing  strength  of  one  of 
the  largest  religious  bodies  in  the  world  exhibit  the  fatuity 
of  the  ostrich  which  imagines  danger  does  not  exist  because 
it  is  unseen. 

For  generations  past  the  western  world  has  been  peri- 
odically informed  that  Mohammedanism  as  a  religion  is 
moribund  and  that  Christendom  has  nothing  more  to  ap- 

26  d'Herbelot,  op.  cit.,  Tom.  II,  p.  106. 

27  D'  Herbelot,  op.  cit.,  Tom.  II,  p.  351. 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT  241 

prehend  from  it.  It  has  been  assured  that  the  mosques 
are  unfrequented  and  crumbling  into  ruins;  that  schools 
and  colleges  of  Moslem  law  are  neglected  or  languishing 
for  lack  of  financial  support ;  that  the  precepts  of  the  Koran 
are  generally  disregarded  and  frequently  openly  flouted; 
and  that  Islam  is  under  an  eclipse  which  portends  disas- 
ter and  extinction. 

But  what  are  the  facts?  I  can  best  answer  them  in  the 
words  of  Palgrave  whose  sixteen  years  of  investigations 
of  Mohammedan  conditions  from  the  shores  of  the  Euxine 
to  th6  interior  of  Arabia  makes  his  words  on  the  question! 
authoritative.    "Writing  in  1872,  he  declares: 

"Were  I  to  attempt  the  catalogue  of  mosques,  colleges, 
schools,  chapels  and  the  like,  repaired  or  wholly  fresh — 
built  within  the  circle  of  my  own  personal  inspection  alone 
— several  pages  would  hardly  suffice  to  contain  it.  Trebi- 
zond,  Batoom,  Samsoon,  Sivas,  Keysareeyah,  Chorum, 
Amasia,  and  fifty  other  towns  of  names  unknown,  or  barely 
known  in  Europe,  each  can  boast  its  new  and  renovated 
places  of  Mahometan  worship;  new  schools,  some  of  law, 
others  of  grammar,  others  primary,  have  sprung  up  on 
every  side ;  new  works  of  charity  and  public  bequest  adorn 
the  highways. . . .  Meanwhile,  year  after  year  sees  a  steady 
increase  in  the  number  of  pilgrims  to  the  holy  places  of 
Islam ;  and,  although  the  greater  facilitation  consequent  on 
steam  has  undoubtedly  contributed  not  a  little  to  this  result, 
much  must  also  be  put  down  to  the  growing  eagerness 
manifested  by  all,  high  and  low,  to  visit  the  sacred  soil,  the 
birthplace  of  their  religion  and  Prophet;  while  the  pride 
that  each  village  takes  in  its  "hajjees"  is  manifested  in 
the  all-engrossing  sympathy  that  accompanies  their  de- 
parture, and  the  triumphant  exultation  of  the  entire  popu- 
lace that  welcomes  them  home.  It  may  not  have  been  less 
a  thousand  years  ago:  it  certainly  could  not  have  been 
more.*^ 

Although  it  is  nearly  half  a  century  since  the  noted  author 
of  the  Narrative  of  a  Year's  Journey  through  Central  and 

28  Op.  cit.,  p.  122,  et  aeq. 


242  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Eastern  Arabia  penned  the  paragraph  just  quoted,  there 
is  no  evidence,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  gather  in  my 
travels  in  Asia  and  Africa,  that  the  current  of  Moslem 
revival  is  running  lower  than  it  was  fifty  years  ago,  nor  is 
the  rejuvenescence  of  Islam  less  marked  nor  its  power  less 
resistant  or  less  persistent. 

Not  only  has  Mohammedanism  long  been  declared  to  be 
moribund  but  it  has  also,  from  time  immemorial,  been  rep- 
resented as  changeless  in  doctrine  as  are  the  agricultural 
implements  of  the  East — which  are  the  same  to-day  as 
**when  Proserpine  went  a-Maying  through  Enna" — and 
"the  difficulty  of  bringing  Islam  and  its  ways  into  har- 
mony with  modern  society  as  comparable  to  squaring  the 
circle." 

Again,  what  are  the  facts?  So  far  is  Moslemism  from 
being  what  it  was  when  it  came  from  the  hands  of  the 
Prophet,  or  from  what  it  is  as  exhibited  in  the  Koran,  that 
it  has  been  constantly  undergoing  modification  in  religious 
doctrine  and  practice  since  the  days  of  the  first  caliphs. 
Not  to  speak  of  the  countless  changes  which  have  insensibly 
been  effected  by  the  quiet  but  continuous  action  of  Chris- 
tianity, innumerable  others  have  been  brought  about  by  the 
teachings  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  by  Roman  law,  Neo- 
Platonism,  and  other  similar  but  persistent  and  irresist- 
ible influences.  This  is  practically  manifest  in  the  hadith 
as  modified  and  developed  by  canonists,  dogmatists,  and 
mystics  to  enable  Islam  *'to  shape  religious  ordinances  of 
old  customs"  or  *'to  adapt  itself  to  the  peculiar  charac- 
teristics and  stages  of  development  of  the  people  whose 
allegiance  it  wishes  to  win. '  * 

For  not  only  have  law  and  custom,  religious  teachings  and 
political  doctrines  clothed  themselves  in  Hadith  form 
[writes  one  of  the  most  eminent  authorities  on  Mohamme- 
danism], but  everything  in  Islam,  both  that  which  has 
worked  itself  out  through  its  own  strength,  as  well  as  that 
which  has  been  appropriated  from  without.  In  this  work 
foreign  elements  have  been  so  assimilated  that  one  has 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT  243 

lost  sight  of  their  origin.  Sentences  from  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments,  rabbinical  sayings  as  well  as  those  from 
the  apochryphal  gospels,  the  teaching  of  Greek  philoso- 
phers, sayings  of  Persian  and  Indian  wisdom  have  found 
room  in  this  garb  among  the  sayings  of  the  prophet  of 
Islam,  Even  the  Lord's  prayer  is  not  lacking  in  well 
confirmed  Hadith-form.^" 

To  say,  then,  that  Islam  has  always  been  inflexibly  op- 
posed to  the  influence  of  foreign  science,  or  law,  or  philoso- 
phy, or  theology  when  these  elements  enabled  it  **to  mould 
its  intellectual  heritage ' '  and  adjust  itself  to  an  alien  spirit 
or  a  new  environment  is  not  in  consonance  with  the  facts 
of  history.  So  far,  indeed,  is  this  from  the  truth  that  "it 
may  safely  be  said  that  there  is  nothing  more  extraordi- 
nary in  the  whole  history  of  Islam  than  the  way  in  which 
the  theory  of  the  verbal  inspiration  of  the  Koran  and  the 
consequent  stereotyped  and  unalterable  nature  of  its  pre- 
cepts have,  by  ingenuity,  by  legal  fictions,  by  the  *Sunna,* 
or  traditional  sayings  of  Mohammed  or  by  responsa  pru- 
dentum  been  accommodated  to  the  changing  circumstances 
and  the  various  degrees  of  civilization  of  the  nations  which 
profess  it.*'^°  Such  being  the  case,  one  is  not  surprised 
in  finding  so  distinguished  a  writer  as  Stanley  Lane-Poole 
making  the  categorical  assertion  that  "the  faith  of  Islam 
has  passed  through  more  phases  and  experienced  greater 
revolutions  than  perhaps  any  other  of  the  religions  of  the 
world.  "°^ 

No  less  misleading  and  mischievous  are  the  continuously 
repeated  statements  that  the  days  of  Mussulman  mission- 
ary activity  have  long  since  passed;  that  Mussulman  zeal 
for  propagating  the  teachings  of  the  Koran  and  the  Prophet 
no  longer  exists;  that  Pan-Islamism,  as  a  religious  force 
with  which  Christianity  must  reckon,  was  long  ago  dealt 

29  Mohammed  and  Islam,  p.  45  (by  Ignaz  Goldziher,  trans,  by  K.  C.  Seelye, 
New  Haven,  1917). 

80  Mohammed  and  Mohammedanism,  p.  334,  et  seq.  (by  R.  B.  Smith,  Lon- 
don, 1876). 

^^  Studies  in  a  Mosque,  p.  169  (London,  1893). 


244  .  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD,  AND  BABYLON 

its  death  blow  in  the  Gulf  of  Lepanto  by  Don  Juan  of  Aus- 
tria and  under  the  walls  of  Vienna  by  the  immortal  Sobieski. 

But  still,  again,  what  are  the  facts?  It  is  true  that  Mos- 
lem canon  law  still  divides  the  world  into  Bar  al-Islam — 
Abode  of  Islam — and  Bar  al-harh — ^Abode  of  war, — accord- 
ing as  these  two  parts  are  in  the  possession  of  Mohamme- 
danism or  are  yet  to  be  won  to  it  by  the  sword,  yet  it  is, 
nevertheless,  equally  true  that  this  distinction  is  now  prac- 
tically a  dead  letter  and  that  the  Christian  Powers  of  the 
world  are  now  able  to  curtail  Islam's  schemes  of  territorial 
expansion  and  render  forever  impossible  all  hopes  of  world 
conquest.  But,  although  Islam  as  a  political  and  military 
power  is  no  longer  to  be  apprehended — at  least  for  the 
present — it  is  not  true  that  she  has  discontinued  her  mis- 
sionary activities  or  that  her  propaganda  in  behalf  of  the 
religion  of  the  Prophet  is  less  determined  than  it  was  in 
the  days  of  Saladin  or  Solyman  the  Magnificent.  We  have 
only  to  scan  the  authentic  tokens  that  come  to  us  from 
every  quarter  of  the  globe  to  be  convinced  that  Pan-Islam- 
ism  is  to-day  a  greater  missionary  force — peacefully  aggres- 
sive but  fanatically  persistent — ^than  it  has  perhaps  ever 
been  in  any  period  of  her  history.^^ 

Let  us  see.  According  to  the  most  reliable  statistics 
there  are  now  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  million  Moham- 
medans in  the  world,®'  and  this  number,  stupendous  as  it 
is,  is  rapidly  increasing.  The  strongest  agency  in  their 
phenomenal  development  is  the  annual  Jiadj  or  pilgrimage 
to  Mecca  which  every  free  Mussulman  is  required  to  make 

82  "The  spiritual  energy  of  Islam  is  not,  as  has  been  so  often  maintained, 
commensurate  with  its  political  power.  On  the  contrary,  the  loss  of  political 
power  and  worldly  prosperity  has  served  to  bring  to  the  front  the  finer 
spiritual  qualities  which  are  the  truest  incentives  to  missionary  work.  Islam 
has  learned  the  uses  of  adversity  and  so  far  from  a  decline  in  worldly  pros- 
perity being  a  presage  of  the  decay  of  this  faith,  it  is  significant  that  those 
very  Muslim  countries  that  have  been  longest  under  Christian  rule  show 
themselves  most  active  in  the  work  of  proselyting.  The  Indian  and  Malay 
Mohammedans  display  a  zeal  and  enthusiasm  for  the  spread  of  the  faith, 
which  one  looks  for  in  vain  in  Turkey  and  Morocco."  T.  W.  Arnold,  op.  cit., 
p.  426,  427. 

38  According  to  Dr.  Hubert  Jansen's  painstaking  Verhreitung  des  lalama, 
the  number  of  Mohammedans  in  the  world  in  1897  was  259,680,672. 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT  245 

at  least  once  in  his  lifetime.  During  the  period  of  the  hadj, 
the  Sacred  City  of  Moslemism  sees  gathered  around  and 
within  its  walls  a  vast,  surging  throng  of  devotees,  which 
ranges  from  two  to  three  hundred  thousand  strong.  They 
come  from  every  part  of  Asia  and  Africa — from  the  snow- 
swept  steppes  of  Siberia,  from  the  coral-fringed  islands  of 
the  Indian  Archipelago,  and  from  the  tangled  jungles  of 
Senegambia  and  Abyssinia.  Turks,  Kurds,  Persians,  Tar- 
tars, Chinese,  Malays,  Egyptians,  Berbers,  Nubians — ^men 
of  all  colors  and  of  countless  tribes  and  tongues — they  all 
foregather  in  the  Sacred  City  of  Arabia  to  get  inspiration 
and  strength  to  win  proselytes  to  the  creed  of  Mohammed. 

From  Mecca  where  every  one  is  thrilled  by  the  peculiar 
half -pagan  ceremonies  which  Mohammed  incorporated  into 
his  religion,  every  hadji  returns  to  his  home,  imbued  with 
the  surpassing  greatness  of  Moslemism  and  exulting  in  the 
thought  that  his  is  the  blessed  privilege  of  being  numbered 
among  the  followers  of  the  Prophet.  Each  one  is  a  zealous 
agent  of  Moslemism  and  is  prepared,  if  need  be,  to  give 
his  life,  in  disseminating  its  principles  and  in  contributing, 
so  far  as  in  him  lies,  towards  the  realization  of  the  hopes 
of  every  true  Mohammedan — the  final  world  triumph  of 
Pan-Islamism. 

Such  a  determined  army  of  missionaries,  stirred  to  a 
frenzy  of  enthusiasm  by  their  experience  in  what  is  to  them 
the  holiest  spot  on  earth,  has  during  the  last  few  decades 
achieved  results  that  are  positively  startling.  Not  in  cen- 
turies has  Islam  so  defiantly  thrown  the  gauntlet  down  to 
Christendom.  And  never  before  was  it  so  incumbent,  as 
at  present,  on  the  followers  of  Christ  to  use  every  effort 
to  counteract  their  well-directed  campaign  of  Mohammedan 
proselytism. 

No  agency  is  overlooked  by  the  Moslems  that  will  con- 
tribute towards  their  success  in  their  world-wide  propa- 
ganda— traders,  shepherds,  soldiers,  husbandmen,  shop- 
keepers, mollahs,  muftis,  marabouts — all  are  engaged  in 


246  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

the  same  ubiquitous,  unceasing  work  of  winning  converts  to 
the  religion  of  Mohammed. 

But  more  active  and  persistent — were  that  possible — 
than  the  proselytizers  just  mentioned,  are  the  legions  of 
zealots  known  as  dervishes  who  now  count  nearly  a  hundred 
different  orders  and  millions  of  members.  Among  them  are 
all  classes  of  people  from  the  humblest  hamal  to  the  proud- 
est shah  and  sultan.  They  count  untold  thousands  of  such 
ardent  reformers  as  the  Wahabis  and  Sanusiyahs  who  are 
undoubtedly  the  most  powerful  propagators  of  Islam  that 
the  world  has  yet  known.  The  last  named  order  has 
zawivas  or  lodges  with  six  million  oath-bound  members  in 
northern  Africa  alone.  These  are  all  sworn  to  labor  un- 
ceasingly for  the  extension  of  Pan-Islamism  and  for  the 
propagation  of  the  revelation  of  Allah  as  contained  in  the 
Koran.  So  unexampled  has  been  their  proselyting  activ- 
ity between  Egypt  and  Cape  Colony  during  the  last  few 
decades  that  millions  have  been  brought  under  the  banner 
of  the  prophet.  Frequently  in  equatorial  Africa  whole 
tribes  have,  in  a  short  period  of  time,  been  won  to  Moslem- 
ism  by  the  unflagging  zeal  and  resistless  enthusiasm  of  its 
missionaries. 

Every  instrumentality  that  promises  success  is  unhesi- 
tatingly brought  into  requisition.  With  the  view  of  con- 
firming the  wavering  in  their  own  ranks  and  continuously 
increasing  the  number  of  converts,  they  have  everywhere 
established  schools,  orphan  asylums,  and  printing  presses, 
and  in  Christian  countries  they  have  erected  mosques. 
Only  lately  a  great  mosque  was  completed  at  Petrograd. 
Converts  to  Islam  are  found  in  Japan,  Jamaica,  British 
Guiana,  and  Brazil.  The  number  of  immigrant  Moslems 
in  the  New  World  was  recently  estimated  at  more  than  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand,  most,  if  not  all,  of  them  fired 
with  the  same  zeal  for  the  propagation  of  Mohammedanism 
as  their  brethren  in  Asia  and  Africa.  In  the  various  parts 
of  India,  where  according  to  the  most  available  statistics, 
there  are  more  than  sixty  million  adherents  of  the  Prophet, 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT  247 

the  annual  number  of  converts  to  Moslemism  is  variously- 
estimated  from  ten  thousand  to  six  hundred  thousand. 

These  facts  prove  conclusivley  that  Islam  is  very  far 
from  being  either  tottering  or  moribund.  In  the  vigorous 
prosecution  of  the  campaign  which  is  to  make  Pan-Islam- 
ism  not  only  a  dominant  religious  power  but  a  dominant 
political  power  as  well,  it  exhibits  all  the  pertinacious  activ- 
ity of  its  palmiest  days.  It  is  everywhere  winning  victories 
and  ceaselessly  planning  new  and  greater  victories.  It  is 
the  most  vigorous  and  the  most  resolute  anti-Christian 
force  that  confronts  the  Church  to-day.  Those  who  think 
that  Islam  is  approaching  dissolution  or  extinction  should 
ponder  the  words  of  the  Arab  poet : 

Dead  and  buried  had  they  seen  me,  so  their  ready  tale 

they  spread; 
Yet  I  lived  to  see  the  tellers  buried  all  themselves  and 

dead. 

In  the  preceding  pages  I  have  endeavored  in  the  limited 
space  available  to  give  an  honest  statement  regarding  the 
actual  tenets  and  status  of  Moslemism  in  the  past  as  well 
as  in  the  present.  While,  on  the  one  hand,  I  have  studi- 
ously eschewed  everything  like  detraction,  I  have,  on  the 
other,  as  carefully  avoided  anything  that  could  reasonably 
be  construed  as  an  apology  either  for  Mohammed  or  for 
Mohammedanism.  It  has  never  entered  my  mind,  God  for- 
bid! to  compare  Moslemism  with  Christianity  as  a  means 
for  attaining  to  a  true  knowledge  of  our  Creator  or  for 
realizing  the  highest  spiritual  ideals  of  which  our  race  is 
capable.  No,  Christianity,  especially  that  form  of  it  which 
has  sanctified  and  crowned  the  lives  of  a  St.  Jerome,  a  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  a  St.  Theresa,  a  Joan  of  Arc;  which 
presided  at  the  sublime  meditations  of  an  Augustine  of 
Hippo,  or  a  Thomas  of  Aquin,  of  a  Dante  Alighieri,  of  a 
Christopher  Columbus ;  which  has  given  to  the  world  such 
matchless  heroes  and  heroines  of  charity  and  self-sacrifice 
as  a  St.  Vincent  de  Paul,  a  Father  Damien,  a  Sister  of 


248     FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD^  AND  BABYLON 

Charity,  or  a  Little  Sister  of  the  Poor;  that  for  us  is  the 
truest,  the  holiest,  the  most  beneficent  of  all  religions; 
the  one  that  contains  in  all  its  fullness  the  revealed  word 
of  God,  the  one  which  must  be  our  guide  to  a  world  of  hap- 
piness eternal  in  the  life  beyond  the  tomb. 

Truth  and  justice,  however,  compel  us  to  admit  that  there 
are  many,  very  many,  things  in  Islam  to  extort  our  admira- 
tion. Nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  that  Mohammed  achieved 
many  things  for  the  improvement  of  his  idolatrous,  drink- 
sodden,  vice-steeped,  feud-wrecked  countrymen.  The 
Koran,  we  must  confess,  contains  many  beautiful  things 
regarding  one*s  duties  towards  God  and  one's  neighbor; 
but  all  of  them  are  directly  or  indirectly  derived  from  the 
New  or  the  Old  Testament,  or  from  the  doctrines  of  the 
early  Church.  Notwithstanding  all  this,  however,  the 
teachings  of  Islam  are  as  far  beneath  the  saving  and  in- 
comparable truths  of  Christianity  as  is  the  gross  and  sen- 
sual Prophet  of  Mecca  beneath  the  all-pure  and  all-perfect 
Son  of  God. 

But,  to  recur  again  to  the  previously  quoted  opinion  of 
Cardinal  Hergenrcether,  Islam  can  serve  as  a  stepping- 
stone  from  fetishism  to  Christianity  and  as  such  is  worthy 
of  our  sympathetic  study  and  appreciation. 

Among  the  countless  amiable,  honest,  hospitable,  deeply 
religious  Mussulmans  that  every  traveler  finds  in  Moslem 
lands  there  is  a  large  number  who  yearn  for  union  with 
God  and  who  would  make  any  sacrifice  to  conform  with  His 
holy  will  were  it  but  clearly  and  unmistakably  made  known 
to  them.  They  are  but  awaiting  the  arrival  of  the  Savior's 
messenger  and  will  receive  the  word  of  salvation  with  joy 
and  thanksgiving.  The  spiritual  unrest  among  Moslems; 
the  ever-increasing  attempts  at  social  and  doctrinal  re- 
form; even  the  very  zeal  which  loyal  Moslems  exhibit  in 
extending  the  creed  of  the  Prophet— the  only  form  of  re- 
ligion with  which  they  are  really  acquainted— attest  their 
eagerness  in  seeking  the  truth  and  explain  their  ardor  in 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PRESENT  249 

propagating  what  they  deem  to  be  the  only  revelation  of 
the  Most  High. 

Add  to  all  this  a  widespread  feeling  among  Mussulman 
leaders  as  well  as  among  Christian  missionaries  that  the 
time  has  finally  come  when  a  serious  effort  should  be  made 
towards  effecting  some  kind  of  a  rapprochement  between 
the  Cross  and  the  Crescent ;  when  the  vast  organizations  of 
Islam  and  Christianity  should  endeavor  to  arrive  at  a 
better  understanding  of  one  another's  doctrines  and  prac- 
tices ;  when,  rising  superior  to  that  age-long  antipathy  and 
that  mischievous  odium  theologicum  which  has  so  long  kept 
them  in  a  state  of  implacable  hostility,  they  should  strive 
to  meet  one  another  as  brothers  in  one  Lord  and  as  children 
of  the  same  Father. 

More  than  sixty  years  ago  Abd-el-Kader,  the  gifted  Alge- 
rian ruler  and  patriot,  wrote:  **If  the  Mussulmans  and 
Christians  would  give  ear  to  me,  I  should  cause  their  di- 
vergence to  cease  and  they  would  become  brothers."^* 

The  number  of  Moslems  who  entertain  a  view  similar  to 
that  of  the  distinguished  emir  is  daily  increasing.  They 
feel  that  the  moral  and  religious  ideas  of  the  various  races 
of  mankind  are  not  so  irreconcilable  as  they  are  ordinarily 
supposed  to  be.  The  greatest  barrier  towards  a  nearer 
communion  of  sentiments  between  Christians  and  Moham- 
medans has  been  erected  by  ignorance  and  prejudice.  Re- 
move this  barrier  and  the  way,  they  contend,  will  be  pre- 
pared for  intellectual  sympathy  and,  eventually,  for  reli- 
gious union. 

Notwithstanding  the  long  centuries  of  wars  between  the 
Cross  and  the  Crescent,  Mohammedans  are  so  far  from 
regarding  our  Savior,  as  is  commonly  supposed,  with  the 
hatred  and  contempt  which  Christians  have  usually  enter- 
tained for  the  Prophet  of  Mecca,  that  they  have  for  Him 
a  reverence  which  is  inferior  only  to  that  with  which  He 


»♦  "Si  les  Mussulmans  et  les  Chretiens  me  prfitaient  1'  oreille,  je  ferais  cesser 
leur  divergence,  et  ils  diviendraient  frferes  k  I'extdrieur  et  k  I'int^rieur."  Rappel 
t  VlntelUgent,  Avia  4  Indifferent,  p.  105   (Paris,  1858). 


250  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

is  regarded  by  Christians  themselves.  They  believe  that 
He  will  again  return  to  earth  and,  having  slain  Antichrist, 
will  establish  a  reign  of  peace  and  justice  among  men. 
They  believe  that  truth  will  at  last  be  triumphant  and  the 
sword  will  be  sheathed  forevermore.  According  to  the 
Shiahs  of  India  there  will  then  be  an  amalgamation  of 
Islam  and  Christianity  and  then,  finally,  will  be  realized 
in  its  truest  and  highest  sense  something  of  Tennyson's 
dream  of  universal  peace  and  charity 

In  the  Parliament  of  man,  the  Federation  of  the  world. 

The  spiritual  agitation  now  existing  among  Moslems,  the 
aspirations  of  so  many  of  them  for  a  purer  and  more  ele- 
vating creed  than  that  of  Mohammed  would  seem  to  offer  a 
peculiarly  favorable  opportunity  for  preaching  to  them  the 
Gospel  of  the  world's  Redeemer.  But  there  are,  unfor- 
tunately, almost  insuperable  difficulties  in  the  way.  There 
are,  first  and  foremost,  the  selfish  diplomacy  and  the  unprin- 
cipled aggressions  of  the  European  Powers,  which  nullify 
in  advance  all  projects  of  Christian  propaganda.  The  fre- 
quent exhibitions  of  very  questionable  morality  on  the  part 
of  certain  European  diplomatists  who  have  manifested  a 
total  disregard  of  the  most  solemn  covenants ;  the  ruthless 
conquests  of  Christian  nations  which  have  at  times  dis- 
played an  utter  disregard  of  the  most  elementary  rights  of 
humanity  and  have  often  had  recourse  to  the  most  cruel 
and  barbarous  methods  of  warfare — these  things  have  not 
helped  to  commend  to  Moslems  the  religion  of  their  con- 
querors. The  recent  campaigns  of  Italy  in  Tripoli,  of 
England  on  the  Gold  Coast,"  of  Russia  in  the  Transcau- 

s"  An  American  writer,  referring  to  the  Italian  campaign  in  Tripoli,  asks: 
"Is  there  rain  enough  in  the  sweet  heavens  to  wash  away  the  stain  on  Italy's 
fair  name  made  deep  and  black  by  ruthless  massacre?"  G.  F.  Herrick  in 
Christian  and  Mohammedan,  p.  236   (New  York,  1912). 

And  an  English  author  writing  of  the  British  war  on  the  Gold  Coast 
declares:  "Our  'prestige'  serves  as  an  excuse  for  committing  what  we  should 
condemn  as  crimes  in  any  other  nation.  It  is  an  entity  that  has  juggled  us 
into  the  belief  that  to  destroy  what  we  cannot  retain  is  the  prerogative  not 


ISLAM,  PAST  AND  PKESENT  251 

casia  have  but  intensified  the  bitterness  of  Islam  toward 
Christendom  and  fanned  the  flame  of  fanaticism  among 
millions  who  sullenly  await  an  opportunity  for  making  re- 
prisal. 

Then,  too,  there  is  among  many  the  pessimistic  feeling 
which  is  expressed  in  Kipling's  couplet: 

Oh,  East  is  East,  and  West  is  West, 
And  never  the  twain  shall  meet — 

a  feeling  that  has  been  engendered  among  them  by  a  vague 
notion  that  there  is  an  impassable  chasm  between  the  peo- 
ples of  Asia  and  Europe  and  that  any  attempt  to  reconcile 
them  will  prove  not  only  illusory  but  impossible.  Starting 
with  such  an  assumption  they  still  cling  to  the  detestable 
theory  in  politics  of  identifying  power  and  right  and  of 
enforcing  the  inexorable  demands  of  an  iniquitous  diplo- 
macy by  the  satanic  instrumentality  of  machine  guns  and 
trinitrotoluol. 

Non  tali  auxilio  nee  defensoribus  istis 
Tempus  egit  .    .    . 

Christian  nations,  if  actuated  by  the  altruism  which  they 
are  constantly  preaching,  if  guided  by  the  same  law  of 
charity  which  is  binding  on  individuals,  need  not  such  help 
or  such  defenders  of  their  prestige  or  national  honor. 

No,  what  is  now  needed  more  than  ever  before  is  a  com- 
plete change  of  attitude  of  the  "West  towards  the  East.  If 
we  are  to  make  the  brotherhood  of  man  anything  more  than 
an  idle  phrase;  if  we  are  to  bring  together  in  amity  and 
comity  the  peoples  of  the  Orient  and  the  Occident;  if  we 
are  to  heal  the  wounds  which  the  followers  of  Mohammed 
have  suffered  from  centuries  of  cruel  calumny  and  still 
cruder  wars;  if  we  are  to  lead  Islam  to  a  knowledge  of 

of  barbarism,  but  of  civilization  and  Christianity.  .  .  .  Truly  this  war  will 
be  a  damnosa  hereditaa  to  posterity,  alike  whether  we  accept  or  disclaim 
the  fearful  responsibilities  in  which  it  has  involved  us."  R.  B.  Smith,  op.  cit., 
p.  258. 


252  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Christianity  and  to  an  eventual  acceptance  of  the  Gospel 
of  peace  and  love ;  we,  the  followers  of  the  Crucified,  cannot 
too  soon  abjure  our  accursed  theory  that  might  makes  right 
nor  can  we  too  soon  control  that  abiding  lust  of  conquest 
which  has  plunged  the  weak  and  the  innocent  into  such 
untold  suffering  and  which  has  tended  to  perpetuate  the 
deep  hostility  and  the  fatal  misunderstandings  which  for 
long  centuries  have  separated  the  God-created  souls  of  the 
East  from  the  God-created  souls  of  the  West. 

The  time  has  come  for  a  new  Crusade  but  a  Crusade  in 
which  fire  and  sword  shall,  in  the  words  of  good  old  Padre 
Marracci,  be  replaced  by  lingua  et  calamo — ^by  the  voice  of 
the  evangelist  and  the  pen  of  the  expositor  of  Christian 
teaching.  It  must  be  a  Crusade  which  shall  be  inspired 
by  the  ardent  love  of  a  Francis  of  Assisi;  by  the  flaming 
intelligence  of  a  Raymond  Lully;  by  the  wisely  tempered 
zeal  of  a  Peter  the  Venerable.^®  It  must  be  a  Crusade  to 
win  souls  for  Christ,  our  Savior,  and  to  make  all  men  chil- 
dren of  the  same  heavenly  Father.  And  that  which  in  the 
Crusades  of  old  was  the  war  cry  should,  in  the  new  Cru- 
sade, be  the  peace  cry — Deus  lo  volt — God  wills  it. 

36  "Aggredior  vos  non,  ut  nostri  eaepe  faciunt,  armis  sed  verbis;  non  vi, 
sed  ratione;  non  odio,  sed  amore."  Peter  the  Venerable,  op.  cit.,  col  673. 
"I  attack  you,  not  as  our  people  often  do  with  arms,  but  with  words;  not  by 
force  but  by  reason;  not  in  hate  but  in  love."  These  are  the  words  with 
which  Peter  the  Venerable  opens  his  first  book  against  Mussulmans  and  shows 
what  should  be  the  attitude  of  the  missionary  that  would  have  a  hearing 
with  a  people  who  are  as  proud  and  sensitive  as  are  the  followers  of 
Mohammed. 


CHAPTER  XI 
ALONG  THE  TRADE  ROUTES  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST 

Beautiful  old  stories, 
Tales  of  angels,  fairy  legends, 
Stilly  histories  of  martyrs, 
Festal  songs  and  words  of  wisdom; 
/  Hyperboles,  most  quaint  it  may  he. 

Yet  replete  with  strength,  and  fire. 
And  faith — how  they  gleam. 
And  glow  and  glitter! 

Heine. 

Apart  from  its  imposing  monuments  of  the  storied  past, 
few  things  in  the  Near  East  are  of  greater  interest  or  sug- 
gest more  subjects  for  reflection  to  the  serious  traveler  than 
do  its  trade  routes  which,  for  the  most  part,  follow  the 
same  course  as  they  did  when  Abraham  fared  forth  from 
Ur  of  the  Chaldees  into  the  land  of  Canaan  and  when  the 
messengers  of  the  Great  King  sped  along  the  Royal  Road 
from  Susa  to  Sardis. 

Now  as  then  the  roadways  follow  the  lines  of  least  resist- 
ance. But,  owing  to  the  peculiar  topographical  conditions 
of  many  parts  of  the  Near  East,  the  traveler's  choice  of 
direction  is  necessarily  limited.  In  the  broad  and  inhos- 
pitable desert  his  course  will  necessarily  depend  on  the 
location  of  the  few  existing  springs  and  wells  and  wadis, 
while  in  the  mountainous  regions  it  will,  in  great  measure, 
be  governed  by  a  few  and  widely-separated  passes.  In 
many  cases,  too,  where  broad  and  deep  rivers  are  to  be 
crossed,  the  direction  taken,  especially  during  the  season 
of  rains  and  floods,  will  vary  with  the  condition  of  often- 
changing  and  frequently  treacherous  fords. 

The  celebrated  Royal  Road,  of  which  Herodotus  gives  so 
graphic  an  account,  is  a  case  in  point.     The  student  of 

253 


254  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

ancient  history  is  surprised  when  he  first  observes  its  cir- 
cuitous course  between  the  one-time  capital  of  Persia  and 
the  famous  emporium  of  Croesus,  but  the  reason  of  it  be- 
comes evident  when  he  learns  something  of  the  character 
of  the  country  through  which  it  passed.  He  then  discovers 
that  the  prehistoric  travelers — long  centuries  before  the 
days  of  Cyrus  and  Darius  and  Xerxes — who  first  selected 
this  long  and  roundabout  route  between  the  plains  of  Meso- 
potamia and  the  shore  of  the  ^gean — a  route  which  took 
them  over  high  mountains  and  pitiless  deserts  and  danger- 
ous morasses — did  simply  what  a  modern  railroad  engineer 
would  do  under  similar  circumstances — chose  for  their  ven- 
turesome journey  the  line  of  least  resistance/ 

It  must,  however,  here  be  observed  that  the  word  "road,'* 
as  used  in  the  Orient,  rarely  has  the  same  meaning  which 
we  attach  to  the  term.  There  a  road  is  rarely  anything 
more  than  the  line  of  route  marked  by  the  footprints  of 
travelers  or  beasts  of  burden.  Even  the  Royal  Highway 
between  Susa  and  Sardis  was  nothing  more  than  this.  It 
was  only  when  the  Romans — the  great  road  builders  of 
antiquity — became  masters  of  western  Asia  that  its  leading 
cities  were  connected  by  roads  in  our  conception  of  the 
word.  Now,  however,  only  traces  of  these  splendid  high- 
ways constructed  by  the  Caesars  exist,  and  roads  available 
for  wheeled  vehicles  are  still  almost  as  rare  in  most  parts 
of  the  Near  East  as  they  were  in  the  time  of  Tigranes  or 
Tiglath-Pileser. 

1  For  a  helpful  map,  indicating  the  course  of  the  Royal  Road,  the  reader  is 
referred  to  the  third  volume  of  Rawlinson's  Five  Great  Monarchies  (New 
York,  1881).  Much  light  is  also  thrown  on  this  interesting  subject  by 
Rennell's  valuable  work,  The  Geographical  System  of  Herodotus,  Vol.  I,  Sec 
13   (London,  1830). 

It  is  well,  in  reference  to  this  subject,  to  recollect  that  the  ordinary  policy 
of  the  Asiatic  monarchies  was  not  that  of  holding  immense  continuous  areas 
of  territory,  but  the  comparatively  simpler  one  of  safeguarding  the  great  high- 
ways of  communication.  "It  is  important  to  remember  this  in  connection  with 
rapid  conquest  like  that  of  Alexander.  To  conquer  the  Achsemenian  empire 
did  not  mean  the  effective  occupation  of  all  the  area  within  its  extreme 
frontiers — that  would  have  been  a  task  exceeding  one  man's  lifetime — but 
the  conquest  of  its  cultivated  districts  and  the  holding  of  the  roads  which 
connected  them."  Cf.  The  House  of  Seleucus,  Vol.  I,  p.  22  (by  E.  R.  Bevan, 
Loudon,  1902). 


TRADE  ROUTES  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST   255 

But,  although  the  great  majority  of  eastern  roads  have 
never  felt  a  spade  or  pick-ax,  and  are  nothing  more  than 
evanescent  footprints  in  spongy  swamp  or  shifting  sand, 
nevertheless  there  hangs  over  most  of  them  an  air  of  legend 
and  romance  and  historic  association  which  stimulates  the 
mind  of  the  traveler  in  a  preeminent  degree  and  affords  as 
much  food  for  thought  as  he  can  find  in  any  of  the  great 
highways  of  the  more  civilized  regions  of  the  modern  world. 

We  had  wished  to  go  from  Tarsus  to  Antakia,  formerly 
the  capital  of  Syria,  which  in  the  days  of  its  greatest  splen- 
dor was  known  as  "Antioch  the  Beautiful,"  ''The  Crown 
of  the  East,"  ''The  Metropolis  and  Eye  of  Christendom." 
Here  the  followers  of  Christ  were  first  called  Christians  and 
here  for  a  long  time  was  one  of  the  most  influential  seats 
of  the  Christian  Church.  For  generations  it  ranked  next 
to  Rome  and  Alexandria  as  the  most  important  emporium 
in  the  great  empire  of  the  Caesars.  During  a  long  period 
it  was  also  the  western  terminus  of  the  great  trade  route 
over  which  was  borne 

The  wealth  of  Ormus  and  of  Ind 

for  distribution  among  the  marts  of  Greece  and  Rome.  But 
lack  of  time  prevented  us  from  visiting  the  scattered  re- 
mains of  this  once  famous  city  and  we  perforce  boarded  a 
train  on  the  Bagdad  Railway  and  started  for  Aleppo,  whose 
history  is  in  some  respects  scarcely  less  eventful  than  that 
of  the  erstwhile  capital  of  the  Seleucids. 

We  left  the  Cilician  Plain  by  way  of  the  Bagdad  Rail- 
road, which  took  us  over  several  well-constructed  steel 
bridges  and  through  a  number  of  tunnels  in  the  Amanus 
Range.  One  of  these  tunnels,  said  to  be  the  longest  in 
Turkey,  is  more  than  three  miles  in  length.  The  roadbed, 
bridges,  tunnels,  stations,  and  rolling  stock  of  this  noted 
line  compare  favorably  with  those  of  the  best  railways  in 
Europe  and  show,  better  than  words,  what  great  trade 
development  in  the  Near  East  its  projectors  had  in  con- 
templation when  they  put  their  millions  in  the  Bagdad 


256  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Railroad.  Will  they  ever  receive  any  return  for  their  stu- 
pendous investment?  And,  if  so,  when?  Echo  asks 
**When"? 

The  scenery  along  the  railroad  in  the  Amanus  Range 
and  in  the  plain  on  the  way  to  Aleppo  is  much  like  that  of 
the  Taurus  Mountains  and  of  Cilicia  Campestris,  where  one 
can  truly  say  with  the  poet  Bryant 

There  is  a  smile  on  the  fruit,  and  a  smile  on  the  flower, 
And  a  laugh  from  the  hrook  that  runs  to  the  sea. 

Everywhere  one  comes  upon  places  that  are  famous  in  his- 
tory, both  sacred  and  profane.  Everywhere  one  passes 
through  lands  that  during  thousands  of  years,  witnessed  the 
devastations  of  Assyrians  and  Hittites,  Persians  and 
Greeks,  Romans  and  Parthians,  Mongols  and  Saracens  and 
Turks.  And  everywhere  are  ruins  of  Christian  temples  and 
monasteries  which  recall  the  glories  of  the  early  Church, 
the  triumphs  of  her  martyrs,  and  which  serve  as  silent 
reminders  of  the  days  when  Roman  governors  persecuted 
the  followers  of  the  Crucified  because  they  were  regarded 
as  dangerous  to  the  Empire  and  when  Sassanian  satraps 
demanded  their  blood  on  the  ground  that  they  were  the 
foes  of  the  religion  of  Zoroaster.  Of  many  of  these  houses 
of  worship  but  little  now  remains  except  a  few  crumbling 
arches  or  disintegrating  pillars  and  doorways.  Of  others 
all  that  is  left  is  buried  under  a  brush-covered  tell  where  a 
half -famished  goat  is  seeking  a  little  sustenance  or  whence 
a  Turkoman  shepherd  is  watching  his  nearby  flock. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  the  fact  that  most  of  the 
churches  and  monasteries  have  long  ceased  to  be  more  than 
heaps  of  dusty  rubbish,  there  are  still  a  few  edifices  of  the 
long  ago  in  a  comparatively  good  state  of  preservation. 
Among  these  one  of  the  most  notable  is  that  of  Kal'at 
Sim 'an  to  the  northwest  of  Aleppo  and  but  a  short  distance 
from  the  railway.  Kal'at  Sim 'an — which  is  the  Arabic  for 
the  Castle  of  Simon — is  a  monastery  church  which  dates 
from  the  fifth  century  and  is  unquestionably  the  most  admir- 


TRADE  ROUTES  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST   257 

able  group  of  ruins  in  northern  Syria.  According  to  tradi- 
tion this  magnificent  mandra,  or  monastery,  was  erected 
about  the  pillar  on  which  the  noted  St.  Simeon  Stylites  spent 
thirty-six  years  of  his  life  and  where,  by  his  extraordinary 
austerities  and  superior  holiness  of  life,  he  was  the  edifica- 
tion of  countless  thousands  from  far  and  near.  Among 
these  were  the  Emperor  Theodosius  II  and  his  consort,  the 
Empress  Eudocia,  as  well  as  other  distinguished  person- 
ages of  the  Byzantine  capital. 

It  may  here  be  remarked  that  the  Simeon  Stylites  here 
referred  to  was  not — as  is  often  thought — unique  in  his 
strange  mode  of  life.  He  was  but  the  first  of  the  long  line 
of  stylitae,  or  pillar  saints,  whose  peculiar  asceticism  and 
undoubted  sanctity  made  so  deep  an  impression  on  their 
pleasure-loving  contemporaries  not  only  in  Asia  but  in 
Europe  as  well. 

But  more  extraordinary  than  the  ruins  of  churches  and 
monasteries  which  greet  the  traveler  in  every  part  of  the 
Levant,  are  the  imposing  monuments  which  are  due  to  the 
Crusaders  and  which  are  found  in  surprising  numbers  from 
southern  Palestine  to  northern  Mesopotamia.  Crowning 
precipice-encircled  heights  and  protecting  strategic  passes, 
they  are  marvels  of  architectural  beauty  and  massive  gran- 
deur. Those,  particularly,  which  belonged  to  the  great  Mili- 
tary Orders  vie  in  vastness  and  solidity  with  the  great 
strongholds  which  are  the  glory  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Dan- 
ube. They  were  not  only  highly  fortified  strongholds  with 
bastions,  barbicans,  and  donjons  which  served  as  places  of 
refuge  to  the  surrounding  population  in  times  of  stress  and 
danger,  but  were  also  lordly  palaces  with  spacious  halls 
and  noble  chapels  and  chapter  houses  worthy  of  the  great 
castles  of  France  and  England. 

No  less  remarkable  than  the  massiveness  and  grandeur 
of  these  venerable  ruins  are  the  charming  locations  which 
they  occupy.  And  then  the  picturesque  names  which  were 
given  them  by  their  Frankish  builders !  Among  them  were 
such  appellations  as  Blanchegarde,  Chateau  Pelerin,  La 


258  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Pierre  du  Desert,  and  Castle  Belvoir,  to  the  last  of  which 
the  Arabs  gave  even  a  more  poetical  name  when  they 
called  it  Kokab  el-Hawa — Star  of  the  Air.  Built  on  the 
commanding  flanks  of  snow-capped  Hermon  and  cedar- 
famed  Lebanon  these  lordly  strongholds  of  the  Crusaders 
and  of  the  Knightly  Orders  of  the  mediaeval  times  have  about 
them  all  the  glamour  and  chivalry  and  romance  which  envel- 
ope the  most  noted  castles  of  the  Tyrolean  Alps  or  the  Tus- 
can Apennines.  As  I  contemplated  these  fascinating  ruins 
and  the  superb  sites  which  they  so  adorn  and  recalled  the 
stirring  scenes  which  they  witnessed  and  that  too,  in  one 
of  the  most  romantic  epochs  of  the  world,  I  often  wondered 
that  they  had  not  more  frequently  supplied  themes  for  the 
poet  and  the  novelist.  Tasso  in  his  Jerusalem  Delivered 
gives  us  some  idea  of  the  marvelous  richness  of  material 
here  awaiting  the  writer  of  fiction  no  less  than  the  literary 
artist  in  the  domain  of  sober  history  and  archaeology. 
Where,  indeed,  could  a  true  romanticist  find  better  locations 
for  the  plots  of  his  stories  than  in  the  wonderful  old  castles 
of  Kal  'at  el-Hosn,  Kal  'at-es-Subebeh,  or  Bur  j  Safita — gran- 
diose yet  fairylike  in  their  lofty  aeries — which  have  been 
the  houses  of  the  bravest  Knights  who  have  ever  couched  a 
lance  and  which,  despite  their  present  dilapidated  condition, 
for  centuries  have  been  the  admiration  of  travelers  from 
all  parts  of  the  world.  And  what  land  more  readily  lends 
itself  to  tales  of  romance  than  that  in  which  are  found  such 
famous  places  as  Antioch  and  Carmel,  Tyre  and  Ascalon 
and  Jerusalem — places  which  witnessed  the  most  brilliant 
exploits  of  the  Crusaders  and  whose  names  have  so  long 
been  identified  with  the  most  glorious  names  of  Christian 
chivalry? 

It  is  a  long  step  from  the  superb  monuments  of  the  Cru- 
sades to  the  highly  revered  tekkehs  or  mezars  which  abound 
in  all  Moslem  countries.  In  the  Near  East  they  are  seen 
everywhere — along  the  public  highway,  in  the  most  crowded 
quarters  of  large  cities  and  in  almost  deserted  sections  of 
the  country.     These  tekkehs,  which  frequently  serve  the 


TRADE  ROUTES  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST   259 

purpose  of  both  tombs  and  shrines,  are  interesting  for  two 
reasons,  both  of  which  show  how  certain  religious  practices 
of  modern  Islam  are  totally  at  variance  with  the  teachings 
of  the  Koran  and  with  the  traditional  doctrines  of  the 
Prophet. 

According  to  strict  Moslem  law,  the  erection  of  tombs 
and  monuments  over  the  graves  of  the  followers  of  Islam 
is  strictly  forbidden.  The  orders  of  the  Prophet,  as  given 
in  the  ''Traditions,"  are  ''to  destroy  all  pictures  and 
images  and  not  to  leave  a  single  lofty  tomb  without  lowering 
it  to  within  a  span  from  the  ground. ' '  ^  And  yet,  notwith- 
standing this  ordinance  which  the  reforming  Wahabis  have 
strenuously  endeavored  to  enforce,  the  Mohammedans  are 
noted  for  the  magnificent  monuments  which  they  have 
erected  to  the  memory  of  their  distinguished  dead.  Many 
of  their  mosque  tombs  are  the  most  gorgeous  mortuary 
monuments  in  existence. 

But  building  tombs  over  the  graves  of  the  dead,  contrary 
as  it  is  to  the  spirit  of  Islam,  is  far  less  reprehensible  than 
making  them  shrines  or  places  of  pilgrimage.  "May  Allah's 
wrath, ' '  said  Mohammed,  ' '  fall  heavy  upon  the  people  who 
make  the  tombs  of  their  prophets  places  of  prayer."  This 
malediction  seems,  however,  to  have  fallen  upon  deaf  ears 
for,  as  Hurgronje  declares : 

Almost  every  Moslem  village  has  its  patron  saint ;  every 
country  has  its  national  saints;  every  province  of  human 
life  has  its  own  human  rulers  who  are  intermediate  between 
the  Creator  and  common  mortals.  In  no  other  particular 
has  Islam  more  fully  accommodated  itself  to  the  religions 
it  supplanted.  The  popular  practice  was,  to  a  great  extent, 
favored  by  the  theory  of  the  intercession  of  the  pious  dead, 
of  whose  friendly  assistance  people  might  assure  them- 
selves by  doing  good  deeds  in  their  names  and  to  their 
eternal  advantage.^ 

In  Bagdad,  the  "City  of  the  Saints,"  the  number  of 

^Miahkab  V,  6.    Hughes'  Dictionary  of  Islam,  p.  635  (London,  1885). 
*  Mohammedaniam,  p.  85  (New  York,  1916). 


260  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

shrines  is  particularly  large.  They  are  frequented  by  pil- 
grims from  all  parts,  who  prostrate  themselves  before  the 
tombs  of  the  saints  to  whose  shrines  they  often  make  liberal 
offerings  and  where  the  more  devout  pray  and  chant  hymns 
for  hours  at  a  time.  **The  Moslem,"  as  Kuenen  tells  us, 
"seeks  what  his  faith  withholds  from  him  and  seeks  it 
where  the  authority  which  he  himself  recognized  forbids 
him  to  look  for  it. "  * 

According  to  a  widespread  opinion  the  bodies  of  the 
departed  Moslem  saints  are  not  supposed  to  undergo  cor- 
ruption. For  it  is  a  common  belief,  confirmed  by  countless 
traditions,  that  when  the  tombs  of  saints  and  martyrs  are 
accidentally  opened  their  remains  have  the  appearance 
of  being  freshly  buried:  ''their  faces  are  blooming,  their 
eyes  are  bright  and  blood  would  issue  from  their  bodies, 
if  wounded. ' '  ^ 

Not  only  is  the  Moslem  saint  not  dead,  in  our  acceptation 
of  the  term,  but  his  tomb  is  his  house  in  which  he  continues 
to  live  and  in  which  he  receives  the  petitions  of  those  who 
have  recourse  to  him  in  their  difl&culties.  And  yet  more. 
According  to  the  implicit  belief  of  his  devotees  he  can 
leave  his  tomb,  go  on  long  journeys  and  return  again. 
Firmly  believing  in  a  great  invisible  organization  of  saints 
and  in  the  picturesque  al-Khader,  who  is  reputed  to  wander 
continuously  through  the  lands  of  Islam  performing  every- 
where the  will  of  Allah,  and  in  the  countless  deceased  but 
still  very  active  and  ubiquitous  saints,  the  life  of  the  pious 
Mussulman  is  indeed,  as  has  truly  been  observed  ''hedged 
around  everywhere  by  the  Unseen. ' ' 

Our  journey  from  Tarsus  to  Aleppo  was  a  rarely  enjoy- 
able one.  At  every  turn  of  the  road  we  saw  something  of 
unique  historic  or  legendary  interest.  Everything — moun- 
tain crags,  swirling  rivers,  foaming  torrents,  moss-covered 
castles,  crumbling  churches,  that  would  have  enraptured  a 


*  Missionary  Review,  1889,  p.  302. 

^Personal  Narrative  of  a  Pilgrimage  to  El'Medinah  and  Meccah,  p.  299 
(by  Richard  F.  Burton,  Boston,  1858). 


TRADE  ROUTES  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST   261 

Hobbema  or  a  Ruysdael — held  so  mucli  of  glamour  and  ro- 
mance that  we  seemed  all  the  while  to  be  traveling  in  a 
veritable  fairyland.  High  above  the  dark  gray  crest  of 
Amanus  were  motionless  masses  of  bright,  cumulus  clouds 
which,  under  some  magic  influence  seemingly,  had  grouped 
themselves  into  the  forms  of  Norman  donjons  and  Saracen 
strongholds.  And  hovering  near  these  fantastic  shapes, 
fashioned  from  the  mountain  vapor,  was  the  figure  of  the 
giant  rock  of  eastern  fable.  ''Verily,"  I  said  to  my  com- 
panion, *'we  are  in  the  land  of  the  jinn  and  they  are  here 
giving  us  an  exhibition  of  their  power  over  inanimate 
nature."  Having  the  authority  of  Mohammed  for  their 
belief  in  these  supernatural  beings  of  smokeless  fire,  is  it 
surprising  to  find  the  untutored  Mussulman  ascribing  to 
their  agency  what  he  cannot  conceive  as  being  done  by 
human  means?  It  is  the  jinn  ''riding  in  the  whirlwind," 
that  cause,  he  firmly  believes,  the  gyrating  pillars  of  sand 
to  sweep  over  the  desert  and  the  portentous  waterspouts 
to  rise  from  the  troubled  sea,  as  it  is  the  jinn  that  transform 
clouds  into  countless  forms  of  animate  and  inanimate 
nature,  which  oriental  fancy  so  readily  discerns  in  a  cloud- 
dappled  sky.  Should  one  then  be  surprised  at  the  exquisite 
pleasure  which  the  wonder-loving  followers  of  the  Prophet 
find  in  the  recital  of  the  famous  stories  of  *'A  Thousand 
Nights  and  a  Night" — stories  in  which  the  marvelous  is  so 
conspicuous  and  in  which  the  jinn  play  so  important  a  role  ? 
"While  traveling  this  once  densely  populated  region,  we 
recalled  a  saying  of  the  Arabs  that  in  the  triangle  com- 
prised between  Hama,  Antioch,  and  Aleppo  are  found  the 
remains  of  no  fewer  than  three  hundred  and  sixty-five 
cities.  This  statement  is,  doubtless,  an  exaggeration  but 
we  were  willing  to  accept  the  estimate  of  Reclus  that  there 
are  within  this  area  "over  a  hundred  Christian  towns  dat- 
ing from  the  fourth  to  the  seventh  century  and  still  almost 
intact."' 

"  "But  for  the  earthquakes  which  have  here  and  there  rent  the  walls  and 
caused  the  roofs  to  fall  in  nothing  would  be  missing  except  the  woodwork 


262  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Then  there  are  the  countless  dome-covered  tekkehs  which 
stud  the  landscape — each  with  a  Kiblah  and  frequently 
with  a  tomb  and  lighted  lamp.  Around  many  of  them  we 
note  small  groups  of  women  who  have,  presumably,  come 
to  make  offerings  of  oil  and  fruit  and  coin  to  the  guardian 
and  to  implore  the  aid,  if  not  the  intercession,  of  the  local 
saint. 

Besides  these  ever-interesting  objects  there  are  humble 
homes  of  the  country  folk,  every  one  of  which  rejoices  in 
its  fig,  plaintain,  or  mulberry  tree.  Frequently  the  scene 
is  sprinkled  with  nomad  tents  and  enlivened  by  flocks  and 
herds  which  dot  the  green  expanse,  and  by  long  lines  of 
swaying  camels  which  slowly  bear  their  heavy  burdens 
along  the  long-neglected  highway,  still  continuing  their 
service  of  thousands  of  years,  notwithstanding  the  arrival 
of  their  great  competitor — the  iron  horse.  The  increasing 
demands  of  trade  and  the  need  of  rapid  communication 
make  the  construction  of  railways  in  Asia  as  necessary  as 
in  other  parts  of  the  world,  but  the  lover  of  the  picturesque 
will  hope  that  the  time  will  never  come  when  the  locomotive 
will  entirely  displace  the  camel,  which  seems  to  be  an  essen- 
tial feature  in  every  eastern  landscape.  This  thought  comes 
to  me  with  special  insistence  as  the  shriek  of  the  railway 
whistle  announces  our  arrival  at  Aleppo,  where  a  train  of 
cars — ^in  place  of  a  caravan  of  camels — appears  to  be  as 
incongruous  as  at  the  Jappa  Gate  of  Jerusalem. 

While  in  Aleppo  we  were  the  fortunate  guests  of  the 
Franciscan  friars,  the  best  and  most  gentle  of  hosts.  They 
received  us  with  the  same  cordial  hospitality  which  they 
had  so  graciously  extended  to  me  in  Egypt  and  the  Holy 
Land  a  third  of  a  century  before.  Thanks  to  their  long 
residence  in  Aleppo  and  their  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
manners  and  customs  of  its  people,  they  enabled  me  to  see 
more  of  the  Aleppines  during  my  short  sojourn  among 


carried  off  by  the  builders  of  more  recent  cities.  The  removal  of  the  basalts 
and  other  hard  materials  drawn  from  the  quarries  of  the  district  would  have 
been  too  troublesome  and  expensive."  The  Earth  and  Its  Inhabitants,  Vol.  IV, 
p.  285  (New  York,  1885). 


TRADE  ROUTES  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST   263 

them  than  would  otherwise  have  been  possible.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  extreme  kindness  of  the  courteous  and 
learned  Padre  Agostino,  whose  knowledge  of  everything 
in  and  about  Aleppo  continually  reminded  me  of  his  learned 
confrere,  Frere  Lieven  de  Hamme,  who  was  my  constant 
guide  and  friend  during  the  happy  weeks  I  spent  many 
years  before  in  the  holy  city  of  Jerusalem  and  its  environs. 

There  is,  however,  a  great  difference  between  the  two 
cities.  Jerusalem  is  a  city  of  sacred  monuments  and  holy 
memories  while  Aleppo  is  noted  as  Syria's  busiest  interior 
mart.  At  present  its  population  is  about  one  hundred  and 
thirty  thousand  but  in  the  heyday  of  its  prosperity  it 
counted  no  fewer  than  three  hundred  thousand  souls.  It 
was  then  the  great  entrepot  of  trade  between  the  Orient 
and  the  Occident.  Then  great  caravans  brought  silks  from 
China,  carpets  and  tapestry  from  Persia,  spices,  drugs, 
pearls,  and  pfecious  stones  from  India  and  the  Spioe 
Islands  of  the  Malay  Archipelago.  It  was  then  headquar- 
ters for  a  large  colony  of  Venetian,  Dutch,  French,  and 
English  merchants  who  here  exchanged  the  products  of  the 
West  for  the  prized  merchandise  of  the  East. 

Pietro  della  Valle,  the  distinguished  Roman  traveler  who 
visited  Aleppo  in  616,  was  immensely  impressed  by  the 
magnitude  of  its  commercial  transactions.  So  great  was 
the  amount  of  money  involved  that,  he  says,  it  was  never 
counted  but  always  weighed  in  boxes.  And  no  one,  he 
assures  us,  ever  spoke  of  sales  or  purchases  that  did  not 
amount  to  sums  which  ranged,  at  the  lowest,  from  forty  to 
a  hundred  thousand  scudi.' 

For  a  long  time  Aleppo  was  one  of  the  chief  trade  centers 
in  the  East  of  the  Levant  and  East  India  companies.  Dur- 
ing the  period  of  their  greatest  prosperity  the  amount  of 

7  "Nel  far  le  mercanzie,  non  si  contano,  ma  si  pesano  casse  intere  di  denari ; 
e  non  si  fa  mai  compra  o  vendita  dove  non  corran  quaranta,  cinquanta, 
ottanta  o  centomila  que  piu  a  minuto  non  si  parla  e  sarebbe  vergogna." 
Viaggi  di  Pietro  della  Valle,  Vol.  I,  p.  331   (Brighton,  1843). 

When  one  remembers  the  purchasing  power  of  money  in  the  time  of  the 
illustrious  patrician  compared  with  what  it  is  now,  the  sums  mentioned  were 
indeed  considerable. 


264  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

business  transacted  here  was  enormous.  For,  in  addition 
to  these  two  great  organizations,  the  British  Factory  here 
counted  no  fewer  than  eighty  firms,  besides  which  all  the 
leading  countries  of  Europe  had  here  their  factories  or 
organizations  of  factors  or  agents  for  the  purpose  of  secur- 
ing their  share  of  the  great  trade  of  the  Orient. 

At  that  time  a  great  part  of  the  commerce  of  the  Far 
East  came  to  Aleppo  by  way  of  Basra  and  Bagdad.  Then 
the  population  of  Basra  exceeded  two  hundred  thousand 
whereas  it  does  not  now  count  more  than  one-fourth  of 
that  number.  The  number  of  Bagdad's  inhabitants  has 
diminished  in  proportion.  The  great  decrease  in  the  com- 
mercial importance  of  these  two  cities  was  partly  due  to 
war  and  pestilence.  But  the  great  discovery  by  Vasco  da 
Gama  of  an  all-sea  route  between  the  West  and  the  East 
and  the  opening  of  the  Suez  Canal  reduced  the  overland 
traffic  between  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Persian  Gulf  to 
a  small  fraction  of  what  it  was  in  the  palmy  days  of  the 
great  European  factories  of  Aleppo,  Basra,  and  Bagdad. 
According  to  the  plans  of  its  projectors,  the  Bagdad  Rail- 
way is  to  restore  this  overland  trade  to  its  former  magni- 
tude and  even  greatly  add  to  its  amount  and  value. 

It  is  difficult  for  the  modern  traveler  as  he  passes  along 
the  present  overland  routes  between  Aleppo  and  Basra  to 
form  any  true  conception  of  the  stupendous  scale  on  which 
the  old  caravan  trade  between  the  two  emporia  was  for- 
merly conducted.  Although  the  distance  between  the  two 
places  is  nearly  eight  hundred  miles  and  most  of  the  road 
passes  through  the  inhospitable  Syrian  and  Arabian  deserts 
and  the  difficulties  to  be  encountered,  at  the  time  of  which 
we  are  speaking,  were  as  grave  as  they  were  manifold, 
the  number  of  merchants  and  capitalists  who  ventured  for- 
tune and  life  in  this  forbidding  and  dangerous  part  of  the 
world  seems  almost  incredible.  And  the  magnitude  of  the 
caravans  and  the  value  of  the  merchandise  they  transported 
in  a  single  journey  was  yet  more  astonishing. 

In  the  caravan  with  which  Delia  Valle  traveled  there 


TRADE  ROUTES  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST   265 

were,  he  informs  us,'  fifteen  hundred  persons  and  forty  or 
more  large  tents.  That  of  the  celebrated  French  traveler, 
Tavemier,  counted  six  hundred  camels  and  four  hundred 
men.  When  in  1745  the  Englishman,  "William  Beawes, 
crossed  the  desert  there  were  two  thousand  camels!  But 
this  was  far  less  than  the  number  that  was  in  the  caravan 
of  his  countryman,  John  Eldred,  when  a  century  and  a  half 
earlier  he  made  the  journey  from  Bagdad  to  Aleppo  with 
four  thousand  camels  **  laden  with  spices  and  other  rich 
merchandise. "  But  the  largest  of  these  caravans  was  much 
smaller  than  the  one  which  in  1750  went  from  Bagdad  to 
Aleppo  and  which  was  composed  of  five  thousand  camels 
and  eleven  hundred  men.  When  trade  between  the  Persian 
Gulf  and  the  Mediterranean  was  most  brisk,  caravans  of 
from  two  to  five  thousand  camels  crossed  the  desert  twice 
a  year  between  Aleppo  and  Bagdad.  The  Dutch  traveler, 
John  Huyghen  Van  Linschoten,  attributes  the  great  pros- 
perity of  Ormuz  to  the  fact  that  it  was  located  on  the  great 
trade  route  to  India.' 

The  value  of  the  merchandise  carried  by  these  caravans 
was  often  very  great.  Thus  we  are  told  of  the  caravan  of 
an  English  trader,  one  Carmichael,  which  consisted  of 
thirty  mules,  fifty  horses,  and  twelve  hundred  camels,  ''six 
hundred  of  which  were  laden  with  merchandise  valuing 
nearly  300,000  pounds.  The  caravans  that  carried  on  the 
trade  between  Aleppo  and  Mocha  were,"  in  the  words  of  a 
writer  of  the  time,  "esteemed  indifferently  rich  if  they 
carry  less  than  two  million  dollars  or  one  hundred  thou- 
sand ducats  of  gold  either  Hungarian,  Venetian,  or 
Moorish.** 

8  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  353. 

»  The  Voyage  of  John  Huyghen  Van  Linschoten  to  the  East  Indies,  Vol.  I, 
p.  48  (pub.  by  the  Hakluyt  Society,  London,  1885).  "Merchants  come 
thither" — Ormuz — "from  India  with  ships  loaded  with  spicery  and  precious 
stones,  pearls,  cloths  of  silk  and  gold,  elephants'  teeth  and  many  other  wares, 
which  they  sell  to  the  merchants  of  Hormos" — Ormuz — "and  which  these  in 
turn  carry  all  over  the  world  to  dispose  of  again.  In  fact  'tis  a  city  of  im- 
mense trade."  The  Book  of  8er  Marco  Polo  the  Venetian  Concerning  the 
Kingdoms  and  Marvels  of  the  East,  Vol.  I,  p.  107  (trans,  by  H.  Yule,  London. 
1903). 


266  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

The  foregoing  statements  are  illuminating  in  the  infor- 
mation supplied  respecting  the  size  of  the  caravans  and  the 
amount  of  merchandise  they  transported,  but  they  give  us 
no  idea  of  the  great  fatigues  and  dangers  that  were  incurred 
in  the  long  journeys  through  the  cheerless  deserts  which 
were  inhabited  for  the  most  part  by  hostile  and  plunder- 
seeking  Bedouins.  The  Venetian  traveler,  Caesar  Fred- 
erick, throws  some  light  on  the  character  of  the  country 
which  the  caravans  had  to  ti^averse.  Returning  in  1581 
from  his  long  wanderings  of  eighteen  years  in  India  and 
beyond  he  tells  us  that: 

From  Babilon  to  Aleppo  is  forty  days'  journey,  in  which 
they  make  thirty-six  days  over  the  Wilderness,  in  which 
thirty-six  days  they  neither  see  houses,  trees  nor  people 
that  inhabit  it,  but  only  a  plaine  and  no  signe  of  any  way 
in  the  world.  ...  I  say  in  thirty-six  dayes  we  passe  over 
the  wildernesse.  For  when  we  depart  from  Babilon  two 
dayes  wee  passe  by  villages  inhabited  until  we  have  passed 
the  river  Euphrates.  And  then  within  two  dayes  of  Aleppo 
we  have  villages  inhabited.^" 

As  a  precaution  against  attacks  by  Arab  robbers,  Pietro 
della  Valle  informs  us  that  it  was  always  necessary  to  post 
at  night  a  strong  guard  around  the  caravan.  **  During  the 
entire  night  this  guard  runs  around  the  camp  shouting — 
as  is  their  custom — to  their  friends  to  be  on  the  alert  and 
their  enemies  to  keep  away.""  How  conducive  to  sleep 
was  all  this  to  the  anxious  and  way-worn  members  of  the 
caravan  I 

But 

While  heasts  and  men  together  o'er  the  plain 
Moved  on — a  mighty  caravan  of  pain, 

they  were  not  entirely  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  world. 
Although  it  was  long  generations  before  the  invention  of 

loHakluyt'a  Voyages,  Vol.  V,  p.  446    (Glasgow,  1904). 

11  "Mettendo  attorno  al  campo  della  carovana  .  .  .  molte  sentinelle  che 
tutta  la  notte  scorrevano  intorno  e  gridavano,  (secondo  la  lora  usanza)  agli 
amici  que  stessero  all  'erta  ed  ai  nemici  che  non  si  accostaesero."  Op.  cit.. 
Vol.  I,  p.  353. 


TRADE  ROUTES  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST   267 

the  telegraph  and  the  telephone,  they  were  able  to  keep  up 
communication  with  their  friends  by  means  of  homing  pig- 
eons of  which  the  caravan  bashis  released  one  every  other 
day  of  the  journey  through  the  desert.  By  means  of  these 
pigeons,  which  had  been  used  in  the  East  since  the  days 
of  the  Crusades,  the  leaders  of  caravans,  Linschoten 
records,  were  able  to  keep  up  regular  communication  not 
only  with  Bagdad,  Basra,  and  Aleppo  but  also  with  far 
distant  Constantinople. 

Although  the  great  camel  trains  which  were  formerly  so 
indispensable  to  the  merchant  of  the  Levant  have  long  given 
place  to  the  lines  of  steamships  that  now  connect  the  East 
and  the  West  by  way  of  the  Suez  Canal  and  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  the  Syrian  and  Arabian  deserts  still  witness 
as  large  caravans  as  were  ever  known  in  the  most  flourish- 
ing period  of  overland  traffic  between  Aleppo  and  Bagdad. 
Such  caravans  are  now,  however,  but  little  used  for  the 
purpose  of  commerce  but  rather  for  transporting  the  count- 
less thousands  of  pious  pilgrims  who  annually  visit  the 
holy  cities  of  Mecca  and  Medina. 

Doughty  in  his  Travels  in  Arabia  Deserta  gives  us  a 
most  picturesque  description  of  a  pilgrim  caravan  which 
he  was  allowed  to  accompany  over  what  he  calls  **the  old 
gold  and  frankincense  caravan  path  to  Arabia  the  Happy." 
This,  he  declares,  *'is  the  most  considerable  desert  caravan 
in  the  Eastern  World. ' '  The  caravan  with  which  he  jour- 
neyed was,  he  tells  us,  composed  of  *'a  slow-footed  multi- 
tude" of  six  thousand  persons,  ten  thousand  camels,  mules, 
hackneys,  asses,  and  dromedaries,  nearly  two  miles  long 
with  a  breadth  in  the  desert  of  about  one  hundred  yards.^^ 

During  the  last  few  years,  however,  the  Hedjaz  Railroad 
has  in  great  measure  taken  the  place  of  the  large  pilgrim 
caravans  that  formerly  went  from  Syria  to  the  two  sacred 
cities  of  Arabia.  The  northern  terminus  of  this  road  is  at 
Aleppo.  Although  it  is  planned  to  extend  it  to  Mecca,  it 
has  so  far  been  completed  only  to  Medina.    Its  construc- 

12  See  Vol.  1,  p.  7. 


268  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

tion  is  chiefly  due  to  the  late  Sultan,  Abdul  Hamid  II,  who 
saw  in  it  a  power-means  of  furthering  the  projects  of 
Pan-Islamism.  The  Shah  of  Persia,  the  Khedive  of  Egypt, 
and  the  Sherif  and  Ulema  of  Mecca  cordially  joined  in  this 
great  enterprise.  Contribution  from  rich  and  poor  towards 
the  work  came  in  from  all  parts  of  the  Moslem  world.  Luck- 
now  contributed  $140,000 ;  Madras  and  Rangoon,  $300,000 ; 
while  an  Indian  Prince  spent  no  less  than  $200,000  on  the 
Medina  station  alone.  No  fewer  than  seven  thousand  sol- 
diers were  engaged  in  the  construction  of  this  railway 
which  was  to  combine  the  two  most  holy  cities  of  the  Moham- 
medan world  more  closely  to  the  Osmanli  Caliphate  than 
ever  before  and  which  was  to  further  the  cause  of  Pan- 
Islamism  more  effectively  than  could  anything  else  what- 
ever. 

One  feature  of  the  Hedjaz  Railway  trains,  which  strongly 
appeals  to  the  devout  pilgrims,  is  its  prayer  car.  For  them 
it  is  virtually  a  mosque  on  wheels.  But  the  majority  of  the 
pilgrims  appreciate  the  road  still  more  because  it  enables 
them  to  reach  the  sacred  cities  of  their  heart's  desire  with- 
out incurring  the  many  fatigues  and  dangers  that  are  inci- 
dent to  the  slow-moving  caravans.  For  what  with  the 
plague,  the  cholera,  the  treacherous  Bedouins,  and  the 
exposure  to  the  withering  desert  sun  the  mortality  of  the 
pilgrims  to  Mecca  is  enormous. 

To  the  observant  traveler  in  the  East  few  things  are  more 
interesting  than  to  contemplate  the  pilgrim  caravan  as  it 

Winds  slowly  in  one  line  interminable 
Of  camel  after  camel, 

or  is  more  suggestive  of  serious  thoughts  regarding  Mos- 
lem belief  and  practice. 

Many  there  are  who  account  for  the  wide  spread  of 
Islam,  which  now  numbers  two  hundred  and  fifty  million 
adherents,  by  declaring  that  it  is  an  easy  and  sensual 
religion.  But  even  good  Padre  Marracci,  who  was  one  of 
the  first  to  make  an  exhaustive  study  of  the  religion  of 


TRADE  ROUTES  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST   269 

Mohammed,  saw  that  this  explanation  was  not  satisfac- 
tory." The  obhgation  incumbent  on  every  Mussulman  to 
give  liberal  alms — ^which  is  imposed  both  by  the  Koran  and 
by  tradition ;  to  observe  the  strict  and  very  trying  fast  of 
Ramadan, — abstaining  during  the  day  from  water  and 
tobacco  even  though  engaged  in  the  severest  kinds  of  man- 
ual labor,  and  to  make  at  least  once  during  his  lifetime 
the  arduous  and  perilous  pilgrimage  to  Medina  and  Mecca, 
would  seem  rather  to  act  as  an  effective  deterrent  to  the 
acceptance  of  the  religion  of  the  Prophet. 

To  those  who  account  for  the  success  of  Islam  on  the 
theory  that  *'it  attracts  by  pandering  to  the  self-indulgence 
of  men, ' '  Voltaire  addresses  the  pertinent  question : 

Were  there  imposed  upon  you  a  law  that  you  should 
neither  eat  nor  drink  from  four  in  the  morning  until  ten 
at  night  through  the  whole  month  of  July ;  .  .  .  that  you 
should  abstain  from  wine  and  gaming  under  penalty  of 
damnation;  that  you  should  make  a  pilgrimage  across 
burning  deserts ;  that  you  should  bestow  at  least  two  and  a 
half  per  cent  of  your  revenue  on  the  poor ;  and  that  having 
been  accustomed  to  eighteen  wives,  you  should  suddenly 
be  limited  to  four — ^would  you  call  this  a  sensual  religion?  ^* 

Those  who  lay  such  stress  on  self-indulgence  as  a  factor 
in  the  success  of  Mohammedanism  forget  that  *'a  motive  of 
sensuality  could  never,  of  itself,  make  the  fortune  of  a 
religion. '  *  They  forget  what  a  strong  appeal  the  very  sim- 
plicity of  the  Moslem  creed  makes  to  a  man  naturally 
religious.  For,  reduced  to  its  simplest  expression,  Moham- 
medanism embraces  but  two  fundamental  dogmas — ^belief 
in  God  and  belief  in  a  future  life.  **A  creed  so  precise,  so 
stripped  of  all  theological  complexities  and  consequently 

18  Vivendi  licentia,  inquies,  illos  allicit.  Ita  puto:  sed  aliquid  aliud  est 
quod  illos  sub  boni  verique  specie  decipiat.  Habet  nimirum  hsec  superstitio 
quidquid  plausibile  ac  probabile  in  Christiana  Religione  reperitur  et  qusB 
naturse  legi  ac  lumini  consfehtanea  videntur.  Mysteria  ilia  fidei  nostrae  quaa 
prime  aspectu  inchedibilia  et  impossibiblia  apparent,  et  prsecipue  quae  nimis 
ardua  humanse  naturae  censentur,  penitus  excludit."    Op.  dt.,  Tom.  I,  p.  4. 

1*  Dictionnaire  Philoaophique,  s.  v.  "Mahometanisme." 


270  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

so  accessible  to  the  ordinary  understanding,  might  be  ex- 
pected to  possess  and  does  indeed  possess  a  marvelous 
power  of  winning  its  way  into  the  consciences  of  men." 
They  forget  that  proselytism  is  to  every  Mussulman  in  a 
certain  measure  innate ;  that  every  follower  of  Mohammed 
is  by  nature  a  missionary ;  that  in  the  pursuit  of  this  avoca- 
tion he  spares  neither  labor  nor  expense ;  that  so  intense  is 
his  conviction  that  one  is  forced  to  ''notice  and  admire  the 
kind  of  chivalrous  pride  which  the  average  Mohammedan 
takes  in  his  faith. ' '  ^° 

Nor  is  this  all  that  will  impress  the  candid  observer. 
Leaving  out  of  consideration  the  lives  of  the  more  unworthy 
followers  of  Mohammed,  he  will  find  much  in  Islam  that 
he  is  forced  to  respect  and  admire.  Whatever  he  may  think 
of  Moslem  teaching,  he  cannot  help  admire  the  devotion, 
the  zeal,  the  earnestness,  the  spirit  of  sacrifice  which  char- 
acterize so  large  a  number  of  Mussulmans.  There  are,  for 
instance,  no  poorhouses  among  them,  for  the  indigent  are 
abundantly  provided  for  otherwise.^® 

But  more  remarkable  still  is  the  importance  which  they 
attach  to  prayer  and  the  fidelity  with  which  they,  five  times 
a  day,  recite  the  orisons  prescribed  by  their  religion.  Mo- 
hammed is  said  to  have  called  prayer  the  key  to  Paradise 
and  to  have  declared  it  to  be  of  more  value  in  the  eyes  of 
Allah  than  fasting,  almsgiving,  or  a  pilgrimage  to  Mecca. 
When  we  see  his  followers  regularly  saying  their  daily 
prayers  wherever  they  may  be,  even  before  satisfying  their 
cravings  for  much  needed  food  and  drink,  we  must  con- 
clude that  they  take  the  reputed  saying  of  their  Prophet 

I'i Mankind  and  the  Church,  p.  289  (by  G.  A.  Lefroy,  London,  1907). 

16  "A  certain  solidarity  characterizes  not  only  family  relations  but  all 
Moslem  society.  There  are  no  paupers;  almsgiving  is  not  a  mere  theoretical 
obligation  but  an  essential  religious  duty  really  discharged.  It  may  be  replied 
that  there  are  many  beggars.  There  are  and  the  spectacle  is  very  unpleasant; 
but  from  the  beggars'  point  of  view,  could  they,  given  their  misfortunes,  have 
a  better  life?  If  one  has  twisted  limbs  or  any  incurable  malady,  including 
laziness,  is  it  not  more  healthy,  interesting  and  lucrative  to  sit  begging  at 
street-corners  than  to  be  the  inmate  of  a  charitable  institution?  One  thino- 
is  certain — Moslem  beggars  never  starve."  Turkey  in  Europe,  p.  176  (by 
Sir  Charles  Eliot,  London,  1908). 


TRADE  ROUTES  OF  THE  FAR  EAST   271 

very  much  to  heart  and  have  no  doubt  of  its  supreme  mo- 
ment and  eflScacy." 

It  is  because  of  their  profound  religious  earnestness, 
their  abiding  charity  towards  the  poor  and  suffering  and 
their  many  natural  virtues  that  those  who  know  them  best 
have  such  good  reports  to  give  of  the  Mohammedans,^^  and 
would  fain  see  them  better  known  among  our  western 
people,  and  will  welcome  the  day  when  the  prejudices  and 
animosities  of  ages  shall  disappear  and  when  every  soul- 
loving  Christian  shall  constitute  himself  a  missionary  to 
assist  the  followers  of  Islam  towards  becoming  members  of 
the  One  Fold  and  finding  peace  and  happiness  under  the 
One  Shepherd. 

Outside  of  her  people,  I  can  truthfully  say  with  Delia 
Valle  that  I  found  very  little  in  Aleppo  that  was  specially 
riguardevole — ^noteworthy.  But  the  people,  especially 
those  I  was  able  to  visit  in  their  homes,  were  most  charm- 
ing. And  of  never-failing  interest  were  the  representatives 
of  many  lands  whom  I  met  in  the  streets  and  mosques  and 
bazaars.  In  the  last  named  places  were  Asiatics  and  Afri- 
cans of  every  race  and  sect  and  costume,  "with  their  ex- 
pressive hands,  with  henna-tinted  nails,  with  narrow  cun- 
ning wrists" — ^wild  Bedouins,  lordly  Turks,  grim-visaged 
Kurds  and  Turkomans,  handsome  and  athletic  Persians 
and  Circassians,  artful  Greeks,  astute  Armenians,^®  crafty 

17  Lieutenant  Wood,  the  gallant  explorer  of  the  Oxus,  referring  to  this  sub- 
ject, writes:  "Often  .  .  .  have  I  observed  that  the  Mohammedans,  both  old 
and  young,  however  worn  out  by  fatigue  or  suffering  from  hunger  and  thirst, 
have  postponed  all  thought  of  self-indulgence  to  their  duty  to  their  God. 

It  is  not  with  them  the  mere  force  of  habit;  it  is  the  strong  impression  on 
their  minds  that  the  duty  of  prayer  is  so  important  that  no  circumstance  can 
excuse  its  omission."  Journey  to  the  Source  of  the  Oxus,  p.  93  (London, 
1872). 

18  These  good  reports  about  Mohammedans  are  not  of  recent  date.  Read 
what  Ricoldus  de  Monte  Crucis,  a  Dominican  missionary  among  them  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  has  to  say  of  them:  "Quis  enim  non  obstupescat  si  dili- 
genter  consideret  quanta  .  .  .  devotio  in  oratione,  misericordia  ad  pauperes, 
reverencia  ad  nomen  Dei  et  prophetas  et  loca  sancta,  gravitas  in  moribus, 
afTabilitas  ad  extraneos,  concordia  et  amor  ad  suos."  Peregrinatorea  Medii 
^vi  Quatuor,  p.  131   (by  J.  C.  M.  Laurent,  Leipsic,  1864). 

19  Regarding  the  Armenian's  capacity  for  business,  Mr.  Curzon  has  wittily 
remarked,  that,  while  "it  takes  four  Turks  to  cheat  one  Frank,  two  Franks 
to  cheat  one  Greek  and  two  Greeks  to  cheat  one  Jew,  it  takes  six  Jews  t2 


272  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Jews — "all  with  eyes  glittering  with  the  yellow  fires  of 
greed"  and  all,  as  in  the  days  of  the  city's  former  commer- 
cial prosperity,  bent  on  trade  but  in  transactions  far  more 
limited. 

I  found  an  additional  interest  here  in  the  reflection  that 
Aleppo  is  on  the  linguistic  frontier — extending  from  Alex- 
andretta  to  Biredjik  on  the  Euphrates — ^which  separate  the 
peoples  of  the  flowery  Arabic  speech  from  those  of  the 
more  laconic  but  no  less  vigorous  Turkish.  South  of  this 
line  Turkish  ceases  to  be  heard  except  in  the  offices  of  the 
civil  and  military  administrations  of  the  Ottoman  govern- 
ment. 

The  Syrians,  like  the  Arabs,  are  Semites,  but  of  their 
ancient  tongue,  the  Aramaic,  little  now  remains  except  a 
sort  of  dialect  which  is  now  confined  to  only  a  few  villages 
on  the  eastern  declivities  of  the  Anti-Libanus.^"  Syriac, 
it  is  true,  is  still  the  liturgical  tongue  of  the  Maronites  and 
Jacobites  as  it  was  for  centuries  that  of  other  oriental 
Christians  of  Semitic  origin.  But,  if  a  small  number  of 
priests  still  understand  Syriac,  no  one  any  longer  speaks 
it.  For  Syrians  as  well  as  for  Arabs  the  language  of  con- 
versation has  for  a  long  time  been  the  vulgar  Arabic.  The 
Christians,  however,  speak  a  less  pure  form  than  the  Mos- 
lems, for  the  adherents  of  Mohammed,  by  their  constant 
reading  of  the  Koran,  become  familiar  with  the  more  liter- 
ary forms  of  classical  Arabic. 

During  the  Seleucid  and  Byzantine  domination,  the  pre- 
dominant language  of  educated  people  in  Syria  and  Asia 
Minor  was  Greek.  But  in  these,  as  well  as  in  other  regions 
formerly  belonging  to  the  Ottoman  Empire,  we  now  find  the 
most  extraordinary  anomalies   of  linguistic  distribution. 

cheat  one  Armenian."  Researches  in  the  Highlands  of  Turkey,  Vol.  I,  p.  8 
(by  H.  F.  Tozer,  London,  1869).  ' 

According  to  Dr.  Schliemann,  however,  the  palm  for  business  ability  must 
be  awarded  to  the  Greeks  from  the  island  of  Lesbos.  "The  Lesbian  Greeks," 
he  tells  us,  "have  the  reputation  of  being  the  shrewdest  merchants  in  the 
world;  as  a  proof  it  is  alleged  that  in  cities  the  commerce  of  which  is  in  the 
hands  of  Lesbians  not  a  Jew  is  to  be  found."     Troja,  p.  324. 

20  The  learned  Benedictine,  Father  Parisot,  has  recently  collected  the  vocabu- 
lary of  this  interesting  dialect  which  is  threatened  with  early  extinction. 


TRADE  ROUTES  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST   273 

Thus  there  are  in  Anatolia  villages  whose  sole  inhabitants 
are  Greeks  who  belong  to  the  Orthodox  Church  and  where 
the  Greek  language  is  so  little  understood  that  the  priests, 
in  order  to  be  understood  by  their  people,  are  obliged  to 
preach  and  read  the  services  of  the  church  in  Turkish.  In 
Cyprus,  on  the  contrary,  there  are  Turkish  villages  whose 
inhabitants  speak  only  Greek.  But  this  is  no  more  singular 
than  to  find — a  frequent  occurrence — Turkish  newspapers 
printed  in  Greek  or  Armenian  characters.  These  literary 
curiosities  are,  however,  eclipsed  by  a  Jewish  newspaper  in 
Constantinople  which  is  printed  in  Hebrew  characters 
although  the  language  is  Spanish.^^ 

I  have  said  that  outside  of  her  people  I  found  very  little 
in  Aleppo  to  attract  attention.  I,  of  course,  visited  the 
great  mediaeval  castle — called  the  Citadel — that  dominates 
the  city  and  from  the  summit  of  which  one  has  a  magnifi- 
cent view  of  the  surrounding  country.  But  this  impressed 
me  far  less  than  a  small  block  of  basalt  which  I  saw  in  the 
south  wall  of  a  mosque  near  the  citadel  and  which  bears  a 
curious  inscription  like  those  which  have,  during  the  last 
few  decades,  been  brought  to  light  in  ever-increasing  num- 
bers throughout  the  greater  part  of  both  Syria  and  Ana- 
tolia. By  the  superstitious  natives  it  is  held  in  great  vener- 
ation, for  it  is  supposed  to  offer  a  sovereign  remedy  for 
all  ophthalmic  aif  ections.  We  were  assured  that  the  smooth- 
ness of  the  stone 's  surface  was  due  to  the  frequent  practice 
of  the  afflicted  of  rubbing  their  eyes  upon  it.^^ 

The  character  of  this  inscription  was  not  new  to  me  for 
I  had  seen  many  similar  ones  in  the  Imperial  Museum  of 
Constantinople  and  elsewhere,  but  its  location  in  this  com- 
mercial capital  of  the  Near  East  transported  me  in  fancy 

21  This  peculiarity  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  when  the  Jews  and  Moors 
were  expelled  from  Spain  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  tens  of  thousands 
of  Jews  migrated  to  Salonica  and  Constantinople  where  Spanish  is  still  spoken 
by  large  numbers  of  their  descendants. 

22  A  like  superstition  attaches  to  nearly  all  similar  remains  of  antiquity 
not  only  in  Syria  but  in  Egypt  as  well.  Some  are  reputed  to  have  special 
virtues  for  those  suffering  from  tic-douloureux  or  from  rheumatism  for  which 
affections  they  are  said  by  Orientals  to  possess  even  greater  curative  proper- 
ties than  their  famous  panacea — the  bezoar  stone. 


274  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

back  to  a  period  antedating  the  time  when  the  Patriarch 
Abraham,  according  to  tradition,  was  wont  to  milk  his 
flocks  in  a  cave  of  the  citadel  and  distribute  the  milk  in  alms 
among  the  poor."  Then  Aleppo  was  in  the  possession  of 
a  power  that  ranked  with  Egypt  and  Assyria;  a  power 
which,  nearly  two  thousand  years  B.  C,  overthrew  the  first 
Babylonian  dynasty  and  made  an  alliance,  on  equal  terms, 
with  Rameses  II,  the  greatest  of  the  Pharaohs;  a  power 
which,  in  its  palmy  days,  bore  rule  over  the  greater  part  of 
Syria  and  Asia  Minor. 

Until  lately  it  was  believed  by  scholars  that  there  were 
only  two  great  civilizations  in  the  ancient  East — Egypt 
and  Babylonia.  But  recent  discoveries  in  Sinjerli,  Boghaz- 
Keui,  and  many  other  places  have  proved  conclusively  that 
there  was  a  third  civilization  which  was  synchronous  with 
those  of  the  Nile  and  the  Tigris  and  which,  in  the  days  of 
its  splendor,  prevailed  from  Nineveh  to  Smyrna  and  Ephe- 
sus  and  from  the  headwaters  of  the  Orontes  to  the  lower 
reaches  of  the  Halys.  Far  back  in  the  Mycenean  period, 
when  the  Cyclops,  according  to  legend,  were  building  the 
massive  acropolis  of  Tiryns,  and  when,  as  far  as  ''the  first 
pale  glimmer  of  Greek  tradition"  will  enable  us  to  judge, 
the  people  of  Greece  ''were  awakening  to  intellectual  life," 
this  third  civilization — until  a  half  century  ago  entirely  un- 
suspected— was  erecting  monuments  which  are  to-day  the 
amazement  of  the  learned  world  and  which  have  prepared  it 
for  revelations  as  startling  as  any  of  those  that  followed 
the  decipherment  of  the  Rosetta  stone  by  Champollion  or 
the  unlocking  of  the  secrets  of  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  of 
Mesopotamia  by  Grotefend  and  Rawlinson. 

In  this  extended  region  lived  an  extraordinary  people 
whose  cultural  development  may  probably,  according  to 

23  Ibn  Butlan,  a  noted  Arabian  physician,  and  a  Christian,  of  Bagdad,  who 
visited  Aleppo  in  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century  thus  refers  to  this  curious 
tradition:  "In  the  lower  part  of  the  castle  is  a  cave  where  he" — Abraham — 
"concealed  his  flocks.  When  he  milked  these,  the  people  used  to  come  for 
their  milk  crying  'Halaba  ya  la'f — Milked  yet  or  not? — asking  thus  one  of 
the  other,  and  hence  the  city  came  to  be  called  Halab — Milked."  Cf.  Q.  le 
Strange'8  Palestine  Under  the  Moslems,  p.  363  (London,  1890). 


TRADE  ROUTES  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST   275 

Messerchmid,"  "be  dated  about  the  third  millennium" 
before  our  era,  and  who  were  known  by  the  ancient  Egyp- 
tians as  the  Kheta  and  by  the  Assyrians  as  the  Khatti. 
They  were  the  same  people  who  are  spoken  of  in  the  Old 
Testament  as  Hittites  and  who  are  supposed  to  have,  at 
an  early  date,  extended  their  migrations  as  far  south  as 
northern  Arabia.  It  was,  in  the  opinion  of  many  investi- 
gators, from  a  Hittite — Ephron — that  Abraham  bought  *  'the 
double  cave  looking  towards  Mambre"  near  Hebron,  as  a 
family  burial  place."  Referring,  apparently  to  the  founda- 
tion of  Jerusalem  the  prophet  Ezekiel  declares  that  her 
*  *  father  was  an  Armorite  and  her  mother  a  Hittite. ' '  ^^ 
There  is  also  reason  to  believe  that  the  ill-fated  ''Uriah  the 
Hittite,"  the  husband  of  Bethsabee,  the  mother  of  Solomon, 
belonged  to  the  same  race."  And  it  was  because  she  bore  a 
son  to  King  David  that  Bethsabee,  the  wife  of  a  Hittite, 
became  an  ancestress  of  the  Savior  of  the  world.^^ 

But  these  and  other  obscure  references  in  Scripture  to 
the  Hittites  threw  practically  no  light  on  the  wonderful 
people  who,  during  the  past  half  century  have  been  engag- 
ing the  attention  of  many  of  the  ablest  archseologists  and 
orientalists  of  Europe  and  America.  In  1812  the  famous 
Swiss  traveler,  Burckhardt,  discovered  in  Hamath,  Syria, 
a  black  basaltic  block  on  which  were  strange  hieroglyphic 
signs.^^  But  it  was  not  until  sixty  years  later,  when  other 
similar  monuments  were  found  in  the  same  place,  that 
scholars  began  to  realize  their  importance.  Systematic 
investigations  were  then  instituted  by  individuals  and 
learned  societies  and  it  was  not  long  until  their  labors  were 


i*The  Hittites,  p.  12  (London,  1903). 
28  Genesis  xxiii. 
28  Ezekiel  xvi :  3. 

27  Kings  ii:  12. 

28  St.  Jerome  in  the  beginning  of  his  commentary  on  the  gospel  of  St. 
Matthew,  pertinently  observes  in  this  connection:  "Notandum  est  .  .  . 
nullam  sanctarum  assumi  mulierum  sed  eas  quas  Scriptura  reprehendit:  ut 
que  propter  peccatores  venerat,  de  peccatoribus  nascens,  omnium  peccata 
deleret.  Unde  et  in  consequentibus  Kuth  Moabitis  ponitur  et  Bethsabee  uxor 
UrisB." 

29  Travels  in  Syria  and  the  Holy  Land,  p.  147  (London,  1822). 


276  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

rewarded  by  the  most  extraordinary  finds.  Not  only  hiero- 
glyphic inscriptions,  like  those  on  the  blocks  found  at 
Hamath,  were  brought  to  light  but  also  remains  of  cities 
with  large  palaces  and  fortresses  adorned  with  sculptures 
of  the  most  surprising  character. 

Further  research  by  such  eminent  orientalists  as  Halevy, 
in  France;  Hrozny  of  Austria;  Jensen  and  Winckler,  in 
Germany ;  Sayce  and  Hogarth,  in  England,  showed  that  the 
builders  of  these  forgotten  cities  and  the  authors  of  the 
strange  script  which  was  written  in  boustrephedon  fashion 
were  no  other  than  the  people  of  whom  the  Bible  speaks  of 
as  the  Hettites  or  Hittites.^**  All  our  knowledge  of  this  mys- 
terious people,  outside  of  the  brief  references  to  them  in 
the  Sacred  Text,  is  what  has  been  gained  since  the  publica- 
tion in  this  country  of  the  first  Hittite  inscriptions  in  1872. 
We  now  know  that  as  a  power  * '  The  Land  of  the  Hittites ' ' 
became  a  memory  of  the  past  when  the  Assyrians  took  pos- 
session of  Carchemish  and  when,  following  their  capture 
of  this  celebrated  stronghold,  they  entered  Asia  Minor  in 
718  B.  C. — ^but  a  few  years  after  the  foundation  of  Rome. 
Thenceforward  the  region  so  long  inhabited  by  the  Hittites 
was  ruled  in  succession  by  Assyrians,  Babylonians,  Per- 
sians, Greeks,  Romans,  and  Ottoman  Turks. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  the  fact  that  scholars  now 
have  at  their  disposition  many  and  valuable  Hittite  monu- 
ments they  have,  nevertheless,  thus  far  sought  in  vain  for 
a  bilingual  inscription  that  will  serve  as  a  key  to  the  Hittite 
language  and  which  will  force  the  Hittite  sphinx  to  reveal 
her  long-guarded  secret.  This  much  desired  key  may  any 
day  be  uncovered  by  the  spade  of  the  archaeologist.  What 
the  results  of  such  a  discovery  will  be  can  only  be  conjec- 
tured. Many  who  are  competent  to  judge  think  they  will 
compare  in  importance  with  those  that  followed  the  deciph- 
erment of  the  hieroglyphics  of  Egypt  and  the  cuneiform 
inscriptions  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia — that  they  will  dis- 

80  Cf.  The  Language  of  the  Hittites  in  The  Times  Literary  Supplement,  p. 
180   (London,  April  3,  1919). 


TRADE  ROUTES  OF  THE  NEAR  EAST   277 

close  an  intimate  relation  between  the  culture  of  the  Hittites 
and  the  earliest  civilizations  of  Cyprus  and  Crete,  Greece 
and  Italy,  and  that  they  will  contribute  immensely  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  earliest  connection  of  the  peoples  of  West- 
ern Asia  with  those  of  southeastern  Europe  and  of  their 
influences  on  one  another  in  the  divers  domains  of  religion, 
art,  literature,  and  politics.'^ 

As  I  gazed  on  the  mysterious  block  of  basalt  at  Aleppo 
with  its  soon — one  hopes —  to-be-deciphered  inscription  and 
thought  of  the  wonderful  Hittite  records  that  have  been 
unearthed  during  the  last  few  years  and  the  promise  which 
they  hold  of  priceless  contributions  to  the  history  of  our 
race,  I  recalled  what  the  distinguished  French  savant,  the 
late  Vicomte  E.  M.  de  Vogue,  once  said  of  the  East, 
^'L' Orient,  qui  ne  sait  plus  faire  d'histoire,  a  le  noble  privi- 
lege de  conserver  intacte  celle  d' autrefois,"  the  Orient 
which  no  longer  makes  history  has  the  noble  privilege  of 

preserving  intact  that  of  former  times. 

> 

«i  When  the  speech  of  the  Hittites  ceased  to  be  a  living  tongue  cannot  even 
be  surmised.  St.  Paul  heard  it  in  Lystra  of  Lycaonia,  but  how  much  later  it 
may  have  continued  to  be  spoken  in  certain  other  parts  of  Asia  Minor  cannot 
now  be  determined.  As  a  people  they  doubtless  long  survived  and,  although 
they  were  gradually  absorbed  by  neighboring  races,  "it  is  believed  that  some 
of  them  still  exist,  with  their  early  distinctive  characteristics,  among  the 
hills  of  the  anti-Taurus  range." 

We  are  likewise  in  ignorance  as  to  when  the  languages  of  Egypt  and 
Babylonia  gave  place  to  those  of  their  conquerors.  According  to  Sayce  "the 
Egyptian  hieroglyphics  were  still  written  and  read  in  the  time  of  Decius,  the 
cuneiform  characters  of  Babylon  were  employed  in  the  age  of  Domitian." 
The  Anfient  Empires  of  the  East,  p.  ix  (New  York,  1886). 


CHAPTER  Xn 

FROM  THE  EUPHRATES  TO  THE  TIGRIS 

We  scrutinize  the  dates 
Of  long-past  human  things, 
The  lounds  of  effaced  states, 
The  lines  of  deceased  kings! 
We  search  out  dead  men's  words  and  - 
works  of  dead  men's  hands. 

Matthew  Arnold,  "Empedocles  on  Etna." 

After  a  delightful  but  an  all-too-short  sojourn  in  Aleppo, 
made  doubly  delightful  by  our  amiable  Franciscan  hosts 
and  by  their  charming  and  hospitable  friends  whose  num- 
ber here,  as  everywhere  else  in  Syria,  is  legion,  we  were 
once  more  on  the  road  with  our  faces  turned  toward  the 
mysterious  and  spell-weaving  Orient.  Although  every 
hour  that  we  had  spent  under  the  genial  Syrian  sun  had 
been  replete  with  its  peculiar  interest  or  pleasure,  we 
longed  to  set  foot  on  the  land  that  is  bounded  by  the  famed 
rivers  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris.  Our  feeling,  indeed, 
was  somewhat  akin  to  that  expressed  in  Kipling  ^s  Man- 
dalay,  "If  you've  'eard  the  East  a-callin',  why,  you  won't 
'eed  nothin'  else." 

Boarding  a  train  of  the  Bagdad  Railway  at  the  station 
on.  the  site  of  the  erstwhile  camp  of  the  Crusaders  under 
Baldwin,  we  were  soon  on  our  way  towards  our  first  objec- 
tive, Jerablus  on  the  Euphrates.  Our  course  lay  through 
the  heart  of  a  fertile  country  strewn  with  ruins  and  dotted 
with  mud-built  villages.  The  puffing  locomotive  made  its 
way  alternately  along  fruitful  valleys  and  over  rolling  up- 
lands whose  state  of  cultivation  showed  that  this  region 
well  deserved  the  name  of  ''granary  of  northern  Syria." 
And,  notwithstanding  the  advent  of  the  iron  horse,  the 
winding  caravans  which  we  frequently  passed  or  overtook 

278 


FROM  THE  EUPHRATES  TO  THE  TIGRIS      279 

were  proof  conclusive  that  the  service  of  the  patient  camel 
is  likely  to  continue  for  a  long  time  to  come. 

It  was  but  a  few  hours  after  leaving  Aleppo  that  we 
caught  the  first  glimpse  of  the  Euphrates  as  it  flowed 
through  arid  wastes  and  washed  barren  rocks  and  hills  of 
sand.   Although,  like  Ulysses,  I 

Much  had  seen  and  known;  cities  of  men 
And  manners,  climates,  councils,  governments, 

I  have  seen  few  things  that  thrilled  me  more  than  my  first 
view  of  this  famous  waterway.  For,  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  I  had  spent  my  early  boyhood  within  a  few  hun- 
dred miles  of  the  Mississippi,  I  was  familiar  with  the  name 
of  the  Euphrates  before  I  had  heard  of  that  of  our  great 
"Father  of  Waters.'*  And  when,  after  nearly  three  score 
years  of  waiting,  I  at  length  found  myself  actually  walking 
along  the  sandy  marge  of  this  stately  river — a  river  that 
my  earliest  reading  told  me  had  its  source  in  Paradise — 
and  felt  personal  contact  with  it,  it  was  in  very  truth  an 
event  in  my  life.  It  was,  indeed,  like  meeting  again  a  favor- 
ite friend  of  boyhood  days.  The  emotions  which  I  then 
experienced  and  the  memories  that  were  evoked  have  been 
expressed  in  part  in  the  beautiful  apostrophe  of  the  poet 
Michel : 

All  hail,  Euphrates!  stream  of  hoary  time, 

Fair  as  majestic,  sacred  as  sublime! 

What  thoughts  of  earth's  young  morning  dost  thou  bring! 

What  hallowed  memories  to  thy  bright  waves  cling! — 

The  bowers  are  crushed  where  Eve  in  beauty  shone, 

Ages  have  whelmed,  beneath  their  ruthless  tide, 

Assyria's  glory  and  Chaldcea's  pride: 

But  thou,  exhaustless  river!  rollest  still. 

Raising  thy  lordly  voice  by  vale  and  hill; 

Sparkling  through  palm-groves,  washing  empires'  graves; 

And  gladdening  thirsty  deserts  with  thy  waves; 

Mirroring  the  heavens,  that  know  no  change,  like  thee, 

A  glittering  dream,  a  bright-leaved  history! 


280  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

No  river  in  the  world  has  played  so  prominent  a  role 
in  the  annals  of  our  race,  and  none,  not  even  the  Nile,  can 
boast  of  nobler  traditions  or  a  more  illustrious  history,  or 
is  richer  in  beautiful  myths  and  soul-stirring  legends.  On 
its  fertile  banks,  it  is  believed,  was  rocked  the  cradle  of 
mankind  and  its  glistening  waters  whisper  secrets  of  long- 
forgotten  dynasties  and^murmurs  the  names  of  peoples  of 
whom  history  has  no  record.  It  was  long  the  barrier 
between  the  contending  powers  of  the  East  and  the  West ; 
between  the  forces  of  Persia  and  Greece,  of  Parthia  and 
Rome.  Eastern  poets  never  tired  in  singing  its  praises 
and  Arabian  geographers  loved  to  dilate  on  it  as  one  of 
the  great  rivers  of  the  earth. 

In  the  Bible  the  name  of  the  Euphrates  occurs  as  early 
as  the  second  chapter  of  Genesis.  According  to  scholars 
of  repute  the  patriarch  Abraham  on  his  way  to  the  Prom- 
ised Land  crossed  it  at  Birejik,  but  a  few  miles  north  of 
where  it  is  now  spanned  by  the  great  steel  bridge  of  the 
Bagdad  Railway.  In  the  Covenant  which  God  had  made 
with  him  the  dominions  of  his  posterity  were  to  extend 
*  *  from  the  river  of  Egypt  ^  even  to  the  great  river  Euphra- 
tes." And,  obedient  to  the  command  of  the  Lord  to  **go 
forth  from  kindred  and  out  of  his  father's  house  .  .  .  Abra- 
ham took  Sarai  his  wife  and  Lot  his  brother's  son  and  all 
the  substance  which  they  had  gathered  and  all  the  souls 
which  they  had  gotten  in  the  land  of  Haran;  and  they 
went  out  to  go  into  the  land  of  Canaan."  ^  Crossing,  then, 
the  Euphrates  near  the  spot  where  we  crossed  it  ourselves 
they  must,  in  order  to  find  the  necessary  sustenance  for 
their  flocks  and  herds,  have  traversed  the  same  fertile  plain 
that  had  so  engaged  our  attention  on  the  way  from  Aleppo 
to  Djerabis  and  probably  by  one  of  the  sinuous  caravan 
tracks  that  we  noted  from  the  car  window. 

But  ''The  River,"  ''The  Great  River,"  as  the  Jews  called 


1  According  to  recent  investigations  this  was  probably  what  is  now  known 
as  the  Wady  el  'Arish  and  not  the  Nile,  as  usually  supposed. 

2  (Jenesis  xii :  5. 


FROM  THE  EUPHRATES  TO  THE  TIGRIS      281 

the  Euphrates,  was  more  celebrated  in  profane  than  in 
sacred  history.  This  is  particularly  true  of  that  stretch 
of  the  stream  between  the  modern  towns  of  Bir  and  Rakka. 
It  was  at  Carchemish,  which  adjoins  Djerabis,  where  the 
Hittites  had  the  great  capital  and  the  powerful  fortress 
which  enabled  them  so  long  to  control  the  commerce  between 
Assyria  and  Babylonia  on  the  east,  and  Phoenicia  and  Egypt 
on  the  west.  It  was  at  the  same  famous  stronghold  that 
Nebuchadnezzar  II  won  a  signal  victory  over  Pharaoh- 
Necho  and  his  Greek  and  Asiatic  allies.  It  was  here  also 
that  Chosroes  I  crossed  the  river  by  building  a  bridge  of 
boats  at  the  time  of  his  third  campaign  against  the  Byzan- 
tines as  he  had  crossed  it  at  Obbanes  in  his  first  expedition 
against  Justinian.  It  was  at  Bir,  formerly  known  as 
Zeugma — the  Bridge — that  Crassus  and  Seleucus  Nicator 
passed  into  Mesopotamia,  where  the  Roman  general  met 
such  a  tragic  fate.  It  was  at  Thapsacus  that  Xenophon 
and  Cyrus  the  Younger  crossed  the  great  waterway  in  the 
campaign  that  terminated  so  disastrously  for  the  Persian 
Monarch  at  Cunaxa.  It  was  here  also,  nearly  a  hundred 
years  later,  that  Darius  crossed  *' fleeing  headlong  east- 
wards with  his  broken  army  after  the  battle  of  Issus,  with 
Alexander  headlong  at  his  heels."  It  was  in  the  waters  of 
the  same  famed  river  that  Trajan  and  Julian  the  Apostate 
slaked  their  horses'  thirst.  It  was  the  same  waters  that 
witnessed  the  brilliant  campaigns  of  Heraclius,  the  splendid 
triumphs  of  the  Caliphs,  and  the  devastating  hordes  of 
Timur  and  Jenghiz  Khan. 

Tradition  informs  us  that  it  was  down  these  tawny  waters 
that  a  frail  craft  carried  Herodotus  in  his  memorable  visit 
to  Babylon.  And  long  before  this  date  it  was  up  the  Euphra- 
tes, that  Gisdhubar,  the  mythical  hero  of  the  great  Baby- 
lonian epic,  proceeded  on  his  homeward  voyage  after  hav- 
ing "by  a  suitable  sacrifice,"  secured  the  good  will  of 
heaven  for  his  undertaking.*    But,  what  has  already  been 

8  Sayce's  Lectures  on  the  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion  as  Illustrated  hy 
the  Religion  of  the  Ancient  Babylonians,  p.  410    (London,   1898).     Lucius 


282  FEOM  BEBLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

said  is  more  than  enough  to  show  that  the  rolling  waters  of 
the  Euphrates  are,  in  truth,  "charged  with  the  history  of 
the  ancient  world.*'  And,  judging  by  the  railroads  and 
steamer  lines  that  are  planned  or  in  operation,  and  the 
great  irrigation  works  that  are  under  construction  for  re- 
storing to  the  vast  Babylonian  plain  its  old-time  fertility, 
the  day  is  not  far  distant  when  ''The  Great  River"  of  the 
Jews  will  witness  achievements  which  shall  rival  the  glories 
of  Babylon  and  its  hanging  gardens  in  the  days  of  the 
city's  greatest  splendor  and  power. 

We  had  anticipated  spending  several  days  in  Djerabis 
in  order  that  we  might  have  an  opportunity  to  examine  the 
remains  of  Carchemish  that  have  recently  been  uncovered 
by  the  spade  of  the  archaeologist.  The  great  number  of 
sculptures,  both  in  relief  and  in  the  round,  which  have  been 
unearthed  here  are  destined  to  throw  a  flood  of  light  on  the 
cultural  and  political  histories  of  the  great  Hittite  empire, 
and,  when  they  shall  have  been  thoroughly  investigated, 
they  will  no  doubt  cause  us  greatly  to  modify,  if  not  essen- 
tially alter,  many  of  the  views  we  have  long  entertained 
respecting  one  of  the  most  powerful  but  least  known  peoples 
of  the  ancient  world.  Excavators  here  are  fondly  hoping 
that  they  may  have  the  good  fortune  to  turn  up  among  these 
venerable  ruins  the  long  desired  bilingual  inscription  that 
shall  enable  them  to  decipher  the  strange  Hittite  script 
that  has  so  long  baffled  scholars.  Such  an  inscription  would 
supply  them  with  a  key  to  the  history  of  a  nation  that  was 
so  long  a  rival  of  Egypt  and  Babylonia,  and  its  discovery 
would  truly  mark  a  red-letter  day  in  the  annals  of  oriental 
research  and  scholarship.* 

Ampelius  writing  in  hia  Liber  Memorialis,  Cap.  II,  of  the  origin  of  the  con- 
etellations,  refers  to  a  more  extraordinary  legend  in  connection  with  the 
Euphrates.  "Pisces  ideo  pisces  quia  iello  Gigantum,  Venus  perturbata  in 
piscem  se  transfigurcuuit.  Nam  dicitur  et  in  Euphrate  fluvio  ovum  piscis  in 
ora  flumimis  columba  adsedisse  dies  plurimos  et  exclusisse  deam  benignam  et 
misericordem  hominibus  ad  bonam  vitam.  Vtrique  memorice  causa  piscea 
inter  sidera  locati." 

*  For  an  interesting  report  on  the  excarations  made  at  Djerabis  on  behalf 
of  the  British  Museum,  see  the  beautifully  illustrated  monograph  Carchemish 
[(\)j  D.  G.  Hogarth,  London,  1915). 


FROM  THE  EUPHRATES  TO  THE  TIGRIS      283 

When  I  first  set  foot  upon  Mesopotamia  my  emotion  was 
almost  as  great  as  when  I  caught  my  first  view  of  ''The 
River,"  ''The  Great  River,"  "The  River  of  the  East," 
"The  River  of  Asia,"  as  the  Euphrates  is  variously  desig- 
nated in  the  Sacred  Text.  I  was  at  last  in  the  Aram- 
Naharaim  of  the  Jews — "The  Syria  of  the  Two  Rivers," 
known  to  the  Arabs  as  Al-Jezireh — The  Island — because  it 
is  compassed  by  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates.  I  was  now 
actually  treading  the  soil  of  the  first  country  I  had  ever 
read  about,  and  surveying  the  land  which  first  enchained 
my  youthful  fancy.  But  it  was  not  the  Mesopotamia  of  my 
boyhood  dreams  that  I  now  beheld ;  a  land  of  teeming  mil- 
lions of  happy  shepherds  and  contented  husbandmen;  of 
smiling  fields  of  grain  and  attractive  gardens  of  luscious 
fruits;  of  splendid  cities  with  imposing  temples  and  mag- 
nificent palaces.  Far  from  being,  as  I  once  pictured  it,  the 
most  attractive  and  flourishing  region  of  the  world,  it  was, 
as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  a  land  entirely  bare  of  trees 
and  almost  devoid  of  even  the  most  humble  village — a  land 
of  utter  desolation  which  exhibited  on  every  side  almost  a 
complete  cessation  of  that  exuberant  life  which  was  here 
once  so  dominant. 

As  T  contemplated  the  sandy  wilderness  before  me,  it 
required  a  special  effort  of  the  imagination  to  believe  that 
it  was  once  the  home  of  a  powerful  race  which  has  long 
disappeared.  It  recalled,  rather,  scenes  I  had  witnessed 
in  the  arid  Sahara  or  in  the  barren  wastes  of  northern  Chile 
and  southern  Peru.  The  only  traces  now  left  here  of  their 
once  mighty  empire  are  the  numerous  tells  which  dot  the 
wide  expanse  of  the  desert  plain.  Beneath  the  superincum- 
bent earth  of  these  frequent  mounds,  are  all  that  remains 
of  the  homes  of  the  people  who  inhabited  these  parts  in  the 
long,  long  ago.  Some  of  these  tells,  which  rise  up  every- 
where in  this  region  like  islands  in  the  sea,  may  some  day, 
under  the  well-directed  work  of  the  archaBologist,  yield  up 
long  concealed  monuments  that  will  be  of  priceless  value  to 


284  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

the  historian  and  add  immensely  to  our  rapidly  increasing 
knowledge  of  the  former  inhabitants  of  this  once  famous 
land.  Recent  discoveries  in  so  many  other  parts  of  Meso- 
potamia render  such  a  conjecture  eminently  probable. 

We  interrupted  our  journey  between  the  Euphrates  and 
the  Tigris  by  making  a  short  side  trip  to  Urf a,  formerly  the 
great  city  of  Edessa.  It,  like  Tarsus,  was  once  a  celebrated 
literary  center  and  for  that  reason,  if  for  no  other,  it  had, 
for  at  least  one  of  our  party,  a  very  special  attraction. 

Like  all  the  old  cities  of  the  East,  Urfa  is  rich  in  myths 
and  legends  as  well  as  in  historic  memories  both  sacred 
and  profane.  According  to  a  Jewish  legend  which  identified 
it  with  the  Arach  of  the  Bible,  it  was  founded  by  Nimrod, 
"the  mighty  hunter  before  the  Lord.""  Another  legend 
attributes  the  city's  foundation  to  Enoch,  the  Hermes  Tris- 
megistes  of  the  Orientals.  Equally  fabulous  was  the  tradi- 
tion about  the  tent  of  the  patriarch  Jacob,  which,  it  was 
averred,  was  preserved  in  Edessa  until  it  was  destroyed  by 
a  thunderbolt  in  the  reign  of  Emperor  Antoninus.  But 
these  and  similar  tales  regarding  the  antiquity  of  Edessa 
are  all  based  on  myths  and  fables,  for  its  history  dates  only 
from  the  beginning  of  the  little  Kingdom  of  Osrhoene, 
which  was  not  founded  until  132  B.  C. 

There  is,  however,  a  legend — one  of  the  most  beautiful 
of  the  early  Christian  Church — ^which  is  connected  with 
Edessa  and  which  deserves  more  than  a  passing  notice. 
It  was  supposed  for  a  long  time  to  explain  why  Edessa  be- 
came, at  an  early  date,  not  only  the  first  Christian  city  of 
Mesopotamia  but  also  its  greatest  religious  center,  and  to 
account  for  its  preponderating  influence  in  the  spread  of 
the  Gospel  throughout  the  Orient.  Humanly  speaking, 
such  good  fortune  could  not  have  befallen  so  humble  a  com- 
munity as  that  of  Osrhoene,  which  was  at  first  composed  of 
but  a  small  number  of  Christians,  and  which,  in  the  natural 
course  of  events,  would  have  made  but  slow  progress  in  a 


B  It  is  to  this  legend  that  is  due  the  Mussulman  name — Niraroud  Dagh — the 
Mountain  of  Nimrod — of  the  elevation  on  which  stands  the  citadel  of  Urfa. 


FROM  THE  EUPHRATES  TO  THE  TIGRIS      285 

pagan  or  Jewish  environment  which,  if  not  openly  hostile, 
was  decidedly  indifferent. 

No,  Edessa,  it  was  fondly  believed,  had  been  from  the 
beginning  marked  by  the  seal  of  special  privileges,  and  had 
been  destined  by  Our  Lord  to  receive  the  saving  truths  of 
the  Gospel  directly  from  His  apostle/  This  is  the  meaning 
of  the  legend  usually  known  as  ''The  Legend  of  Abgar," 
which  was  developed  at  Edessa  towards  the  middle  of  the 
third  century  and  which  for  centuries  had  an  extraordinary 
vogue  in  the  West  as  well  as  in  the  East,  among  Moham- 
medans as  well  as  among  Christians/ 

According  to  this  legend,  the  report  of  the  miracles  of 
Our  Lord,  having  reached  Edessa,  Abgar,  who  was  King 
of  certain  tribes  beyond  the  Euphrates  and  was  afflicted  by 
an  incurable  malady,  sent  to  Jerusalem  a  messenger  with  a 
letter  addressed  to  Our  Savior,  begging  Him  to  come  to 
cure  him.  But  Jesus  replied  that  He  could  not  go  to  Edessa 
but  that  He  would,  after  executing  His  mission  and  ascend- 
ing to  heaven,  send  him  one  of  His  disciples  who  would 
effect  his  cure  and  at  the  same  time  announce  to  him  the 
tidings  of  salvation. 

Eusebius  of  Caesarea,  ''The  Father  of  Church  History,*' 
is  our  chief  authority  concerning  the  letters  which  are  said 
to  have  passed  between  Abgar  and  Our  Lord.  They  were, 
the  historian  assures  us,  long  preserved  in  the  archives  of 
Edessa. 

The  copy  of  the  letter  of  the  King  to  Our  Lord  reads : 

Abgarus,  ruler  of  Edessa,  to  Jesus  the  excellent  Savior 
who  has  appeared  in  the  country  of  Jerusalem,  greeting. 
I  have  heard  the  reports  of  thee  and  of  thy  cures  as  per- 
formed by  thee  without  medicines  or  herbs.  For  it  is  said 
that  thou  makest  the  blind  to  see  and  the  lame  to  walk,  that 

6  In  the  "Testament  of  St.  Ephrem,"  as  piven  by  Assemani,  occurs  the  words 
"Benedicta  civitas,  .  .  .  Edessa  sapientum  mater,  quae  ex  vivo  Filii  ore 
benedictionem  per  ejus  discipulum  accepit.  Ilia  igitur  benedictio  in  ea  maneat 
donee  Sanctua  apparuerit."  Bibliotheca  Orientalia,  Tom.  I,  p.  141  (Rome, 
1719). 

f  Cf.  Histoire  Politique,  Religieuae  et  Littiraire  d*  Edesae  juaque  4  la 
Premiire  Croiaade,  p.  81   (by  R.  Duval,  Paris,  1892). 


286  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

thou  cleansest  lepers  and  castest  out  impure  spirits  and 
demons,  and  that  thou  healest  those  afflicted  with  lingering 
disease  and  raisest  the  dead.  And  having  heard  all  these 
things  concerning  thee  I  have  concluded  that  one  of  two 
things  must  be  true :  either  thou  art  God,  and  having  come 
down  from  heaven,  thou  doest  these  things,  or  else  thou, 
who  doest  these  things,  art  the  Son  of  God.  I  have  there- 
fore written  to  thee  to  ask  thee  that  thou  wouldest  take  the 
trouble  to  come  to  me  and  heal  the  disease  which  I  have. 
For  I  have  heard  that  the  Jews  are  murmuring  against  thee 
and  are  plotting  to  injure  thee.  But  I  have  a  very  small 
yet  noble  city  which  is  great  enough  for  us  both. 

To  this  appealing  letter  of  the  King  the  Savior  replied ; 

Blessed  art  thou  who  hast  believed  in  me  without  having 
seen  me.  For  it  is  written  concerning  me,  that  they  who 
have  seen  me  will  not  believe  in  me  and  that  they  who  have 
not  seen  will  believe  and  be  saved.  But  in  regard  to  what 
thou  hast  written  me,  that  I  should  come  to  thee,  it  is  neces- 
sary for  me  to  fulfill  all  things  here  for  which  I  have  been 
sent,  and  after  I  have  fulfilled  them  thus  to  be  taken  up 
again  to  him  that  sent  me.  But  after  I  have  been  taken 
up  I  will  send  to  thee  one  of  my  disciples,  that  he  may  heal 
thy  disease  and  give  salvation  to  thee  and  to  those  who 
are  with  thee.* 

The  letter  of  Our  Lord,  as  given  by  Eusebius,  was  sub- 
sequently amplified  as  is  seen  in  an  apocryphal  work  known 
as  **The  Doctrine  of  Addai."  I  refer  to  it  because  of  the 
concluding  sentence  of  the  letter  in  which  Jesus  is  made 
to  say  to  Abgar  regarding  Edessa,  ''And  thy  city  shall  be 
blessed  and  the  enemy  shall  not  prevail  against  it  for 
ever.  ^ ' 

It  was  because  of  this  promise  of  Our  Lord,  that  His 
letter  to  Abgar  became  doubly  precious  in  the  eyes  of  the 
King  and  of  his  people.  For  they  regarded  it  thencefor- 
ward as  a  palladium  of  their  beloved  city  and  felt  sure  that 
they  would  never  again  be  at  the  mercy  of  their  foes. 

^  Eccleaiastical  History,  Bk.  I,  Chap.  XIII. 


FROM  THE  EUPHRATES  TO  THE  TIGRIS      287 

Chosroes,  resolved  to  show  to  the  Edessenes  the  futility 
of  the  promise  on  which  they  so  confidently  relied,  and 
determined  at  the  same  time  to  prove  the  falsity  of  the 
Savior's  words,  proceeded  in  the  year  544  to  lay  siege  to 
the  place.  The  besieging  Persians  pushed  their  work  so 
vigorously  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  beleaguered  city  were 
almost  in  despair.  In  this  extremity,  according  to  the 
legend,  the  King  of  Edessa  went  to  the  gate  with  the  letter 
of  Our  Lord  and,  unfolding  it  and  holding  it  aloft,  reminded 
the  Savior  of  His  promise,  that  no  enemy  should  ever  pre- 
vail against  it.  Immediately  an  impenetrable  darkness 
enveloped  the  foe  and  prevented  it  from  advancing  further. 

During  several  months  Chosroes  blockaded  the  city 
without,  however,  being  able  to  effect  an  entrance.  In 
despair  the  discomfited  and  exasperated  Chosroes  tried 
to  reduce  the  city  to  submission  by  cutting  off  its  water 
supply.  But  no  sooner  did  he  achieve  his  purpose  than  a 
number  of  magnificent  fountains  issued  forth  within  the  city 
and  his  nefarious  design  was  frustrated.  The  Persians 
were  thus  compelled  to  raise  the  siege. 

But  this  was  not  the  only  occasion  on  which  the  city  was 
thus  rescued  from  its  foes.  For  every  time  thereafter,  the 
story  continues,  that  the  Edessenes  were  beset  by  their 
enemies,  it  sufficed  to  produce  the  letter  of  the  Savior  and 
read  it  before  their  enemies  to  compel  them  to  withdraw. 

I  have  selected  this  as  a  type — probably  the  most  beau- 
tiful type — of  many  similar  legends  that  were  long  current 
in  the  Orient.  Indeed,  not  a  few  of  them  retain  their 
old-time  popularity  not  only  in  the  East  but  in  the  West 
as  well.  This  is  particularly  true  respecting  the  legend 
of  Abgar.  But  what  will  appear  more  remarkable  to 
readers  of  our  critical  and  skeptical  age,  is  that  in  every 
century  of  the  Church,  from  the  third  to  the  nineteenth, 
there  have  been  eminent  scholars  who  have  maintained  the 
authenticity  of  the  correspondence  between  King  Abgar 
and  Our  Lord.  Among  them  it  suffices  to  mention  such 
distinguished  authorities  as  Tillemont  in  the  seventeenth 


288  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

century,  Assemani  in  the  eighteenth  and  Rinck,  Cave,  and 
Cureton  in  the  nineteenth. 

It  was  because  of  the  belief  in  the  genuineness  of  the 
letter  of  Our  Lord  to  King  Abgar  that  it  was  during  the 
Middle  Ages  regarded  as  a  panacea  for  disease  and  as  an 
amulet  or  talisman  against  all  kinds  of  dangers — "against 
lightning  and  hail  and  perils  by  sea  and  land,  by  day  and  by 
night,  and  in  dark  places.'*'  It  was  doubtless  because  of 
this  widespread  belief  in  the  phylacteric  efficiency  of  this 
letter  that  the  custom  prevailed  in  England  as  late  as  the 
last  century,  and  traces  of  it  still  exist  to-day,  for  people  to 
hang  up  a  copy  of  the  letter  in  their  homes.^'' 

Interesting,  however,  as  is  the  correspondence  in  ques- 
tion, it  is  now  pronounced  by  the  general  consensus  of 
scholars  to  be  apocryphal  and  must,  therefore,  be  relegated 
to  the  limbo  of  many  similar  fictions  with  which  the  mytho- 
poeic  East  has  in  every  age  supplied  the  credulous  and 
wonder-loving  West. 

But  fascinating  as  one  may  find  the  myths  and  legends  of 
Edessa,  they  must  prove  but  secondary  to  its  long  and 
eventful  history.    For,  in  the  days  of  its  glory  it  ranked 

9  An  ancient  manuscript  in  the  British  Museum  contains  a  service  book  of 
Saxon  times,  in  which  the  letter  of  Our  Lord  to  Abgar  follows  the  Lord's 
Prayer  and  the  Apostle's  Creed.  At  the  end  of  the  letter,  which  is  in  the 
Latin  version  of  Rufinus,  occurs  the  words:  "Sive  in  domu  tua,  eive  in 
civitate  tua,  sive  in  omni  loco  nemo  inimicorum  tuorum  dominabit.  Et  insi- 
dias  diaboli  ne  timeas  et  carmina  inimicorum  tuorum  destruuntur  (sic),  et 
omnes  inimici  tui  expellentur  a  te:  sive  a  grandine,  sive  a  tonitrua  (sic)  non 
noceberis,  et  ab  omni  periculo  liberaberis:  give  in  mare,  sive  in  terra,  iive  in 
die,  sive  in  nocte,  sive  in  locis  obscuris.  Si  quia  hanc  epistolam  secum 
habuerit,  securus  ambulet  in  pace."  Cf.  Ancient  Syriac  Documents  Relative 
to  the  Earliest  Establishment  of  Christianity  in  Edessa  and  the  Neighboring 
Countries,  from  the  Year  after  Our  Lord's  Ascension  to  the  Beginning  of  the 
Fourth  Century,  Discovered,  Edited,  Translated  and  Annotated  by  the  late 
W.  Cureton,  p.  154  (London,  1864).  See  also  The  Book  cf  Cerne,  p.  205, 
et  seq.  (by  the  erudite  Benedictine,  Dom,  A.  B.  Kuypers,  Cambridge,  England, 
1902). 

10  For  a  critical  discussion  of  the  "Legend  of  Abgar"  see  Les  Origines  de 
VEglise  d'Edesse  et  La  LSgende  d'  Abgar  (by  the  learned  Sulpician,  L,  J.  Tix- 
eront,  Paris,  1888). 

"The  practice  of  keeping  this  letter  as  a  philactery  prevailed  in  England 
till  the  last  century.  .  .  .  'The  common  people*  there  have  had  it  in  their 
houses  in  many  places  in  a  frame  with  a  picture  before  it  and  they  generally 
with  much  honesty  and  devotion  regard  it  as  the  word  of  God  and  the  genuine 
epistle  of  Christ.'  ...  I  have  a  recollection  of  having  seen  the  same  thing 
in  cottages  in  Shropshire."    Cureton,  pp.  cit.,  p.  15g. 


FROM  THE  EUPHRATES  TO  THE  TIGRIS      289 

with  Nisibis,  Damascus,  and  Antioch  as  one  of  the  four 
great  cities  of  Syria.  As  a  center  of  trade  it  was  the  rival 
of  Palmyra  which  was  then  the  great  emporium  of  western 
Asia.  Through  it  passed  the  highly-prized  products  of 
India  and  China  on  their  way  to  the  marts  of  Egypt  and 
Rome." 

As  a  literary  center,  it  was,  as  a  recent  writer  observes, 
**  admirably  situated  between  the  Greek  world  and  the 
Oriental  world.  Communicating  on  the  one  hand  with 
Antioch,  on  which  it  depended  and  on  the  other  with  Persia, 
Greater  Armenia,  and  even  with  India,  the  capital  of 
Osrhoene  was  well  placed  to  profit  both  by  the  culture  of 
Greece  and  the  powerful  originality  of  the  barbarous  coun- 
tries of  the  East.  It  was,  as  it  were,  the  confluence  in  which 
the  ideas  of  two  worlds  became  intimately  blended  and 
where  the  various  nationalities  of  its  inhabitants  as  well 
as  the  diversity  of  religious  beliefs  brought  there  by 
strangers  and  merchants  tended  to  give  the  city  a  physiog- 
nomy not  unlike  that  of  Alexandria. ' '  ^^ 

After  suffering  greatly  from  a  destructive  inundation  in 
the  early  part  of  the  sixth  century,  Edessa  was  restored  by 
Justinian  on  such  a  magnificent  scale  that  it  was  reputed 
to  be  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world.  According  to  Arabian 
writers  there  were  at  one  time  no  fewer  than  three  hundred 
convents  and  monasteries  in  and  around  Edessa.  These, 
like  similar  institutions  in  Asia  Minor  and  Europe,  were 
schools  of  intellectual  culture  in  which  the  lover  of  learning 
could  devote  himself  to  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  in 
entire  peace  and  security. 

One  of  the  most  celebrated  of  Edessa 's  homes  of  learning 

11  In  the  province  of  Osrhoene,  about  a  day's  journey  from  Edessa,  was  a 
celebrated  mart  called  Batne,  where  the  Indians  and  the  Seres  came  to  trade 
with  the  Edessenes  and  rich  merchants  from  other  cities  at  an  annual  fair 
which  was  held  in  this  place  in  the  month  of  September.  Here,  Ammianua 
MarcellinuB  informs  us  "magna  promiscuee  fortunae  convenit  multitudo  ad 
commercanda  quae  Indi  et  Seres  aliaque  plurima  vehi  terra  marique  consueta." 
Rerum  Oestarum,  Lib.  XIV,  Cap.  Ill,  3. 

For  an  illuminating  map  showing  the  importance  of  Edessa  as  a  trade 
center  during  Roman  times,  see  V.  Chapot's  La  Frontikre  de  L'Euphrate  de 
Pomp4e  d  la  ConquHe  Arabe,  facing  p.  402  (Paris,  1907). 

12  L.  J.  Tixeront,  op.  cit.,  p.  7,  et  aeq. 


290  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

and  culture  was  that  known  as  '^The  School  of  the  Per- 
sians," because  its  first  students  and  teachers  were  chiefly 
Christian  refugees  from  Persia.  Its  foundation  was  largely 
due  to  St.  Ephrem,  who  so  eclipsed  all  his  contemporaries 
in  scholarship  that  their  works  soon  fell  into  oblivion.  So 
voluminous  were  his  works,  so  widely  read  were  they,  and 
so  great  were  their  authority  that  their  author  was  acclaimed 
the  "Column  of  the  Church,"  ''The  Prophet  of  the 
Syrians,"  ''The  Harp  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  And  in  so 
high  esteem  were  his  books  held,  that  they  were,  as  St. 
Jerome  informs  us,  publicly  read  in  some  churches  after  the 
Holy  Scriptures. 

It  was  in  the  schools  of  Edessa  that  the  Syriac  language 
and  literature  reached  their  highest  degree  of  development. 
It  was  in  them  that  Syriac  was  molded  into  what  subse- 
quently became  the  classic  speech  of  the  Syrians  from  the 
Tigris  to  the  Mediterranean  and  which  is  seen  at  its  best 
in  the  works  of  Bardesanes  and  St.  Ephrem,  in  the  Peshito 
and  in  Tatian  's  ' '  Diatesseron. ' '  But  neither  in  Edessa  nor 
elsewhere  did  the  Syrian  Church  ever  produce  such  eminent 
scholars  and  men  of  so  great  literary  genius  as  a  Basil  or  a 
Eusebius,  a  Chrysostom  or  a  Gregory  Nazianzus.  We  are, 
however,  indebted  to  Syrian  scholars  for  the  translation 
of  many  precious  Greek  works  which  otherwise  would  have 
been  lost,  and  for  thus  "having  passed  on  the  lore  of 
ancient  Greece  to  the  Arabs"  who  in  their  turn  were  so 
greatly  instrumental  in  putting  it  at  the  disposal  of  the 
scholars  of  the  West. 

There  is  but  little  in  Urf  a  to-day  to  show  what  it  was  when 
it  was  known  as  Edessa  and  when  students  and  learned 
men  flocked  to  it  from  all  parts  of  the  East  as  to  one  of  the 
greatest  seats  of  learning  in  Christendom.  There  is,  it  is 
true,  a  great  castle  standing,  and  walls  and  towers  that 
date  back  to  the  time  when  Edessa  was  a  Latin  principality 
under  Baldwin,  and  evidences  of  the  city's  former  occu- 
pation by  Romans  and  Persians  and  others,  but  there  is 


FROM  THE  EUPHRATES  TO  THE  TIGRIS      291 

little  which  will  long  claim  the  attention  of  the  serious 
visitor. 

Like  all  travelers  we  visited  the  city's  chief  lion — ^the 
great  reservoir  which,  as  Pliny  informs  us,  won  for  Edessa 
the  name  Callirhoe — ^the  city  of  the  beautiful  well — spring — 
Callirhoen  a  fonte  nominatam.  From  the  earliest  days  to 
the  present,  this  reservoir  has  been  held  in  great  veneration. 
In  pagan  times  it  was  consecrated  to  the  goddess  Atha- 
gartis.  To-day  it  is  known  as  the  Pool  of  Abraham.  The 
large  number  of  fish  with  which  it  is  always  filled  are  sacred 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Mohammedans,  who  consider  it  a  very 
meritorious  act  to  supply  them  with  nourishment.  The 
groups  that  are  sometimes  gathered  around  this  pool 
feeding  the  sacred  fish  seem  quite  as  preoccupied  as  the 
crowds  that  so  generously  distribute  their  supplies  of  grain 
to  the  pampered  pigeons  of  San  Marco,  Venice. 

The  only  ecclesiastics  in  Urf  a  to-day  to  devote  themselves 
to  the  work  of  the  Church  which  St.  Ephrem  and  his  asso- 
ciates served  so  well,  whose  convent  was  our  home  during 
our  visit  to  their  famous  city,  are  the  Capuchins.  It  is  now 
more  than  two  and  a  half  centuries  since  these  zealous  sons 
of  St.  Francis  inaugurated  their  missionary  labors  in  Meso- 
potamia and  the  adjoining  countries,  and  these  have  been 
centuries  of  trial  and  sacrifice  and  persecution  which  would 
have  forced  less  heroic  men  to  abandon  an  undertaking 
that  often  seemed  impossible.  Everywhere  they  were  con- 
fronted by  the  fanaticism  of  Mohammedanism,  which  was 
naturally  suspicious,  and  the  jealousy  of  schism  and  heresy 
which  were  quick  to  take  umbrage  at  whatever  was  calcu- 
lated in  any  way  to  affect  their  age-long  belief  and  practices. 

During  hundreds  of  years  the  torch  of  the  faith  which 
St.  Ephrem  had  preached  had  been  extinct  in  the  broad 
region  which  the  Capuchins  had  chosen  for  the  field  of 
their  missionary  activity.  And  during  an  almost  equally 
long  period,  all  vestige  of  union  between  the  churches  of 
Mesopotamia  and  those  of  the  adjacent  regions  had  com- 
pletely disappeared. 


292  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

It  was  thus  also  at  Urfa  when  in  1850  two  Spanish 
Capuchins,  Fra  Joseph  of  Burgos  and  Fra  Angel  de 
Villarubbia,  took  up  their  abode  in  this  city  of  noble 
memories  and  world-famed  achievements.  They  had  to 
face  the  same  difficulties  and  fanatical  agencies  that  had 
been  arrayed  against  their  brethren  elsewhere.  The  old 
schismatic  Greeks,  Syrians,  and  Armenians  joined  forces 
with  the  Mussulmans,  the  Jacobins,  and  the  Nestorians  as 
against  a  common  foe  and  left  nothing  undone  to  render  the 
undertaking  of  the  new  missionaries  a  failure  and  to  compel 
them  to  leave  the  country.  But  the  admirable  patience 
of  the  good  fathers,  their  great  self-abnegation,  their 
abounding  charity  towards  the  poor  and  the  distressed 
soon  won  all  hearts,  and  churches,  schools,  and  asylums 
sprang  into  existence  as  if  by  magic.  And  it  was  not  long 
until  large  numbers  belonging  to  the  dissident  Greek, 
Syrian,  and  Armenian  churches  began  to  return  to  the 
Church  of  their  forefathers  and  to  apply  for  union  with  the 
Church  of  Rome.  Nor  were  the  Mohammedans  less  im- 
pressed than  the  Christians  by  the  superior  virtue  of  the 
missionaries.  Their  veneration  for  Father  Angel  was  so 
great  that  they  always  called  the  Latin  Church ' '  The  Church 
of  Father  Angel" — Abuna  Angil  Kilisesi — a  name  which  it 
still  bears. 

But  the  Capuchins  were  not  the  only  agents  of  a  new 
spiritual  and  intellectual  life  in  Urfa.  For  in  all  their 
works  of  mercy  and  reform  they  were  most  ably  seconded 
by  the  zealous  Sisters  of  St.  Francis  from  Lons —  le  Saunier, 
France.  Forbidden  by  the  iniquitous  "Association  Laws" 
from  devoting  their  lives  to  the  poor  and  the  suffering  and 
the  illiterate  of  their  own  country  they,  with  rare  self-denial, 
generously  offered  to  labor  in  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord  in 
far-off  Mesopotamia.  As  I  noted  their  cheerfulness  and 
enthusiasm  in  their  labors  among  the  poor  and  afflicted  in 
Urfa,  I  could  but  compare  them  with  some  of  their  sisters 
in  religion  whom  I  had  seen  in  the  leper  hospitals  of  Hawaii 


FROM  THE  EUPHRATES  TO  THE  TIGRIS      293 

— ^who,  although  always  in  contact  with  the  most  repulsive 
form  of  disease,  were,  I  thought,  the  most  buoyant  and 
lighthearted  beings  I  had  ever  met — all  enjoying  an  abound- 
ing happiness  that  could  come  only  from  a  heroic  sacrifice 
in  the  service  of  God  and  humanity. 

On  our  return  to  the  railway  we  were  greatly  impressed 
by  the  fertility  of  the  soil  in  the  vicinity  of  Urfa.  Its 
orchards  and  gardens,  gay  with  flowers  and  fruit  trees 
of  all  kinds — oranges  and  lemons,  apricots  and  mulberries, 
figs  and  pomegranates — ^were  a  delight  to  the  eye  and 
formed  a  garland  around  the  city,  which  gave  it  "the 
smiling  appearance  of  a  grandiose  villa. '* 

About  an  hour  after  boarding  the  train  we  found  our- 
selves crossing  the  dried-up  bed  of  the  Nahr  Belikh,  one 
of  the  most  noted  streams  in  Mesopotamia.  It  was  on  its 
banks — and  only  a  short  distance  to  the  north  of  our  course 
— that  was  located  the  once  famous  city  of  Haran.  It  has 
long  been  in  ruins  and  only  a  few  Arab  families  now  make 
their  home  there. 

Haran  figures  in  the  earliest  chronicles  of  both  the 
Assyrians  and  the  Hebrews.  For  a  long  time  it  was  the 
focus  of  all  the  roadways  of  northern  Mesopotamia  and  a 
center  of  great  wealth  and  prosperity.  But  a  single  well- 
attested  fact  shows  the  great  change  that  has  come  over 
the  face  of  the  land  round  about  Haran  since  its  first  men- 
tion in  history.  For  what  is  now  a  sandy  desert  was  then 
a  well-watered  region  of  remarkable  fertility,  with  a  rich 
flora  and  a  notable  fauna.  This  is  evidenced  by  undoubted 
records  according  to  which  this  part  of  Mesopotamia  was 
a  favorite  hunting  ground  for  the  kings  of  Egypt  and 
Assyria,  for  here  big  game  was  once  as  varied  and  as 
abundant  as  it  is  anywhere  at  present  in  equatorial  Africa. 
Thus  the  Assyrian  King,  Tiglath-Pileser  I,  1120  B.C., 
declares,  "Ten  powerful  bull-elephants  in  the  land  of  Haran 
and  on  the  banks  of  the  Habour  I  killed;  four  elephants 
alive  I  took.     Their  skins,  their  tusks,  with  the  living 


294  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

elephants,  I  brought  to  my  city  of  Asshur.'*^"  To-day  no 
elephants  are  to  be  found  in  the  wild  state  nearer  than 
far-oif  India.  Their  disappearance  from  Western  Asia, 
where  they  formerly  roamed  as  far  westward  as  the 
Lebanon  range,  has  long*  been  as  complete  as  is  that  of  the 
American  bison  from  the  region  east  of  the  Mississippi. 

According  to  a  tradition  based  on  the  book  of  Genesis, 
this  once  celebrated  city  was  named  after  Haran,  son  of 
Thare,  who  was  the  father  of  the  Patriarch  Abraham. 

''And  Thare  took  Abram  his  son  and  Lot  the  son  of  Haran, 
his  son's  son  and  Sarai  his  daughter-in-law,  the  wife  of 
Abram  his  son  and  brought  them  out  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees 
to  go  into  the  land  of  Canaan:  and  they  came  as  far  as 
Haran  and  dwelt  there."  " 

It  was  here  that  Abram  received  from  the  Lord  the  com- 
mand :  ' '  Go  forth  out  of  the  country  and  from  thy  kindred 
and  out  of  thy  father's  house."  It  was  thence  he  went 
into  the  Promised  Land  which  was  to  be  the  home  of  his 
children  and  children's  children  until  the  advent  of  the 
world's  Redeemer. 

It  was  to  his  kindred  in  or  about  Haran  that  Abraham 
sent  his  servant  from  Canaan  to  get  a  wife  for  his  son 
Isaac  and  it  was  in  Haran  that  he  found  the  fair  Rebecca 
as  she  was  going  to  a  spring  with  a  pitcher  on  her  shoulder. 
It  was  this  same  region  that  witnessed  that  idyllic  episode 
in  the  early  life  of  Jacob  so  beautifully  described  in  the 
book  of  Genesis.  It  was  here  that  he  spent  twenty  years 
in  the  service  of  his  uncle,  Laban — six  years  for  the  flocks 
that  his  uncle  gave  him,  and  fourteen  years  for  his  two 
daughters — *'the  tender-eyed  Leah"  and  **the  beautiful 
and  well-favored  Rachel. "  " 

What  a  delight  it  was  in  this  distant  Mesopotamian  plain, 
where   countless   lambs    still   skip   about   their   solicitous 

13  Cf.  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Light  of  the  Historical  Record  and  Legends 
of  Assyria  and  Babylonia,  p.  200  (by  T.  G.  Pinches,  London,  1908). 
1*  Grenesis  xi :  31. 
18  Ibid.,  17. 


FROM  THE  EUPHRATES  TO  THE  TIGRIS      295 

mothers,  as  they  did  when  Leah  and  Rachel  tended  their 
father's  flocks  in  the  long  ago,  to  recall  the  noble  fiction  of 
Dante  who,  in  his  Terrestrial  Paradise,  makes  these  charm- 
ing women  of  humanity 's  youth  the  symbols,  of  the  active 
and  the  contemplative  life  as  are  Martha  and  Mary  in  the 
New  Testament!  And  what  a  pleasure  it  was  to  read  on 
this  romantic  ground  in  my  well-thumbed  Divina  Commedia 
the  oft-conned  verses : 

About  the  hour, 
As  I  believe,  when  Venus  from  the  east 
First  lighted  on  the  mountain,  she  whose  orb 
Seems  always  glowing  with  the  fire  of  love, 
A  lady  young  and  beautiful,  I  dreamed, 
Was  passing  o'er  a  lea  and,  as  she  came, 
*         Methought  I  saw  her  ever  and  anon 

Bending  to  cull  the  flowers;  and  thus  she  sang: 
Know  ye,  whoever  of  my  name  would  ask. 
That  I  am  Leah:  for  my  brow  to  weave 
A  garland,  these  fair  hands  unwearied  ply. 
To  please  me  at  the  crystal  mirror,  here 
I  deck  me.    By  my  sister  Rachel,  she 
Before  her  glass  abides  the  live-long  day. 
Her  radiant  eyes  beholding,  charmed  no  less 
Than  I  with  this  delightful  task.    Her  joy 
In  contemplation,  as  in  labor  mine.'^^ 

I  am  loath  to  leave  this  patriarchal  Arcady — the  once 
happy  home  of  Rachel  and  Leah  and  Rebecca  and  those  near 
and  dear  to  them — ^without  referring  to  a  fable  associated 
with  this  region,  in  which  oriental  fancy  attains  its  loftiest 
flight.  The  thirty  pieces  of  silver  for  which  Judas  Iscariot 
betrayed  his  Master,  were,  it  was  fabled,  coined  by  Thare — 
Terah  in  the  King  James  Version — and  given  to  his  son 
Abraham,  who  gave  them  to  Isaac;  ''Isaac  bought  a  village 
with  them;  the  owner  of  the  village  carried  them  to 
Pharaoh ;  Pharaoh  sent  them  to  Solomon,  the  son  of  David, 

16  Purgatorio,  XXVII,  94-108.  Dante  but  follows  the  teaching  of  the 
Angelic  Doctor  who,  writing  on  the  active  and  the  contemplative  life,  declares : 
"Istse  duffi  vitte  significantur  per  duas  uxores  Jacob:  activa  quidem  per  Liam, 
contemplativa  vero  per  Rachelem;  et  per  duas  mulieres  quae  Dominum  hos- 
pitio  receperunt:  contemplativa  quidem  per  Mariam,  activa  vero  per  Mar- 
tham."    Bumm.  Theol  Pars  II,  2d8B,  Q  CLXXIX,  Art.  1. 


296  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

for  the  building  of  his  temple ;  and  Solomon  took  them  and 
placed  them  round  about  the  door  of  the  altar. ' '  They  were 
taken  thence  to  Babylon  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  who  gave 
them  to  some  Persian  youths  who  had  been  his  hostages. 
These  youths  then  gave  the  coins  to  their  fathers  who  were 
the  three  Magi.  When  Christ  was  born,  and  they  saw 
His  star,  they,  taking  the  pieces  of  silver  with  them,  set 
out  on  their  journey  to  Bethlehem.  Arriving  near  Edessa 
they  mislaid  the  coins,  which  were  found  by  some  traveling 
merchants,  who  spent  them  in  the  purchase  of  a  seamless 
tunic  which  an  angel  had  given  to  some  shepherds.  Informed 
of  these  extraordinary  facts.  King  Abgar  got  possession  of 
the  tunic  and  the  pieces  of  silver  and  sent  them  to  Our 
Lord  in  grateful  recognition  for  the  good  He  had  done  him 
in  healing  his  sickness.  The  Savior  retained  the  tunic  but 
sent  the  pieces  of  silver  to  the  Jewish  treasury.  These 
were  the  thirty  pieces  which  Judas  received  for  delivering 
his  Master  into  the  hands  of  the  chief  priests  and  which 
after  the  traitor  had  hanged  himself,  were  used  for  the 
purchase  of  a  field  for  a  burial  place  for  strangers." 

After  leaving  what  was  once  the  home  of  the  Patriarchs 
we  saw  little  of  interest  until  we  reached  Nisibis.  But 
Nisibis,  like  Haran,  is  interesting  rather  for  what  it  was 
in  the  distant  past  than  for  what  it  is  at  present.  Like 
Haran,  it  was  once  a  busy  and  commanding  mart  between 
the  East  and  the  West.  Now,  however,  like  Haran,  it  is 
little  more  than  a  mass  of  ruins  which  are  eloquent  witnesses 
of  ancient  power  and  splendor.  This  is  evidenced  by  the 
remaining  arches  of  a  great  bridge  across  the  Gargar  on 
which  the  city  was  built  and  by  the  crumbling  walls  and 
columns  of  a  great  cathedral  whose  florid  Corinthian  orna- 
ments remind  one  of  those  which  so  distinguish  the  famous 
temples  of  Baalbec  and  Palmyra. 

As  I  contemplated  the  three  or  four  hundred  hovels  which 
make  up  modern  Nisibis,  it  seemed  difficult  to  believe  that 

17  Cf.  The  Book  of  the  Bee,  p.  95-97,  from  the  Syriac  of  Mar  Solomon,  Bishop 
of  Basra  (trans,  by  E,  A.  W.  Budge,  Oxford,  1886). 


FROM  THE  EUPHRATES  TO  THE  TIGRIS      297 

it  was  once  a  city  of  palaces  and  schools  and  the  great 
bulwark  of  Rome  in  Mesopotamia  against  Persians  and 
Parthians,  and  that  it  was  for  centuries  compelled  to  endure 
a  constant  change  of  rulers.  The  Armenians,  to  begin  with, 
took  it  from  its  founders.  Lucullus,  after  a  long  siege, 
captured  it  from  Tigranes.  After  the  crushing  defeat  and 
death  of  Crassus  at  Haran,^®  the  Parthians  wrested  it  from 
the  Romans.  It  next  fell  into  the  power  of  Trajan  and 
under  Septimus  Severus  became  a  stronghold  of  the  Roman 
colony  established  in  these  parts.  Sapor  I  became  master 
of  it  in  the  year  242,  but  it  was  soon  retaken  by  the  Romans 
under  Gordianus  III  Diocletian  and  Maximian,  recognizing 
the  importance  of  this  strategic  point  and  foreseeing  that  it 
would  inevitably  be  subject  to  the  attacks  of  the  enemy,  had 
it  strongly  fortified.  Ammianus  Marcellinus  gives  us  some 
idea  of  the  formidable  character  of  its  fortifications  when 
he  declares  that  Nisibis  had  served  the  Orient  as  a  barrier 
against  the  invasion  of  the  Persians.^® 

But  Nisibis  was  not  only  a  stronghold  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  the  nation  that  controlled  it;  it  was  also  a 
literary  center  whose  fame  extended  to  Africa  and  Italy 
and  whose  schools  were  as  celebrated  for  certain  of  their 
courses  of  study  as  were  those  of  Rome  and  Alexandria.^" 
When  the  famous  school  of  Edessa  was  closed  in  489  by 
Bishop  Cyrus  and  the  Emperor  Zeno  on  account  of  its 
Nestorian  tendencies,  its  teachers  and  students  repaired 
to  Nisibis,  where  they  became  the  most  zealous  advocates  of 

18  Students  of  history  will  remember  that  the  Emperor  Carcacalla  was 
assassinated  at  Haran  by  one  of  his  soldiers  while  on  a  visit  to  the  temple 
of  the  Moon.  The  Roman  general  Crassus  suffered  a  crushing  defeat  at  the 
same  place  and  was  treacherously  slain  in  the  vicinity  while  in  a  conference 
with  a  Persian  satrap. 

i»  "Quse  jam  a  Mithradati  regni  temporibus,  ne  Oriens  a  Persis  occuparetur, 
viribus  restitit  maximis."     Lib.  XXV,  Cap.  IX. 

20  Cf.  Assemani,  op.  cit.,  Tom.  Ill,  Part  II,  p.  927,  et  aeq. 

Nisibis,  "la  grand  metropole  nestorienne,  vit  naitre  dans  ses  murs  la 
premifere  University  th^ologique,  les  premiers  cours  publics  de  thdologie.  Ce 
phenomene  qui  excitait  I'admiration  et  dtonnement  du  quoeator  sacri  palatii 
de  Justinien  ne  peut  que  nous  donner  une  id^e  avantageuse  de  la  culture  du 
clerge  nestorien  a  cette  6poque  de  son  histoire."  Le  Christianisme  dan  I'Em- 
pire  Perse  sous  la  Dynastie  Sassanide,  (224-6S2)  p.  301  (by  J.  Labourt,  Paris, 
1904). 


298  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Nestorianism  as  they  subsequently  became  its  most  active 
propagators  in  Persia. 

The  ruins  of  this  old  metropolis  show  what  an  important 
city  Nisibis  must  have  been  when  it  was  ranked  with  Edessa 
and  Antioch  and  Damascus  at  the  period  when  they  were  at 
the  zenith  of  their  power  and  greatness.  And  history  tells 
us  of  what  a  fertile  and  densely  populated  region  it  was 
once  the  capital.  In  the  days  of  its  splendor  it  was  sur- 
rounded by  marvelously  fruitful  gardens  and  grain  fields 
while  the  valleys  of  the  Gargar  and  the  Khabur  were 
famous  for  their  olive  groves  and  their  extensive  planta- 
tions of  cotton.  Many  cities  and  towns  on  the  Khabur,  which 
have  long  been  in  ruins,  were  once  noted  cotton  markets 
whence  this  valuable  staple  was  shipped  to  Mosul  and 
Chilat  in  southeastern  Armenia,  where  it  was  converted 
into  muslin.  The  word  muslin,  as  is  known,  is  derived  from 
Mosul  because  this  fabric  had  its  origin  there.  But  both 
the  cultivation  of  cotton  and  the  manufacture  of  muslin 
have  long  ceased  to  be  the  important  industries  they  once 
were  in  this  part  of  the  Orient. 

Another  feature  of  this  part  of  Mesopotamia,  noted  by 
historians,  was  its  forests.  It  was  at  Nisibis  ''where  good 
timber  was  abundant,"  that  the  Emperor  Trajan  had  a 
large  fleet  constructed  to  be  used  on  the  Tigris.^^  Now  the 
entire  country  is  so  treeless  that  anything  larger  than  a 
shrub  is  rarely  seen.  So  uncommon,  indeed,  is  a  tree  of 
any  size  that  when  one  occurs,  it  is  deemed  worthy  of  a 
special  name,  even  as  was  ''The  Oak  of  Weeping,"  under 
which  was  buried  Debora,  the  nurse  of  Rebecca." 

Nor  is  the  desolation  which  so  characterizes  the  regions 
round  about  Haran  and  Nisibis  exceptional  in  northern 
Mesopotamia.  It  is  typical  of  the  entire  country  extending 
from  the  Euphrates  to  the  Tigris.  But  according  to  the 
"Peuteringian  Table"  this  vast  belt  of  land  was  once 
studded  with  cities  and  towns,  of  which  there  are  now  but 


21  Dion  Cassius,  History  of  Rome,  Bk.  I,  XVIII,  26. 

22  Grenesis  xxxv :  8. 


FEOM  THE  EUPHRATES  TO  THE  TIGRIS      299 

scattered  traces.  Crumbling  walls,  remnants  of  bridges  and 
churches  and  reservoirs  are  all  that  now  remain  to  attest 
the  prosperity  of  this  land  in  the  days  of  Roman  grandeur 
and  Byzantine  splendor. 

At  Nisibis  we  reached  the  present  eastern  terminus  of 
the  Bagdad  Railway.  Thence  to  Mosul,  about  a  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  distant,  we  journeyed  on  the  backs  of  drome- 
daries. I  did  not,  however,  regret  that  this  slower  means 
of  locomotion  necessitated  our  -spending  more  time  in  a 
region  that  recalled  Libya's  solitary  waste, 

Its  barren  rocks,  parched  earth  and  hills  of  sand. 

Not  at  all.  I  have  always  loved  the  desert,  its  solitude,  its 
tranquillity,  its  restfulness.    In  it, 

Far  from  the  madding  crowd's  ignohle  strife, 

I  have  spent  many  of  the  most  peaceful  and  enjoyable  days 
of  my  life.  I  love  its  diaphanous  skies,  which  are  as  limpid 
as  the  crystal  heaven  of  Eden.  I  love  its  dry,  ethereal, 
stimulating  atmosphere  which  exalts  the  spirits,  restores 
the  zest  of  youth,  intensifies  the  joy  of  living.  Often,  while 
within  its  quiet  confines,  I  have  exclaimed  with  St.  Bernard 
and  St.  Jerome,  0  sancta  solituto!  Then  I  realized,  as  never 
before,  its  attraction  for  the  hermits  of  the  Thebaid  and 
the  anchorets  of  the  Syrian  Chalcis. 

It  matters  not  that  the  desert  is  as  monotonous  as  the 
ocean ;  that  its  silence  is  broken  only  by  the  muffled  footsteps 
of  our  even-paced  camels ;  that  there  is  a  total  absence  of 
life — there  is  not  a  beast  or  bird  or  insect  visible  in  the 
broad  expanse;  that  on  all  sides  one  sees  nothing  but 
sterility,  desolation,  and  death. 

This  is  all  true — ^very  true.  But  if  the  desert  has  the 
monotony  of  the  ocean,  it  also  holds  within  its  mysterious 
solitudes  all  the  awe  and  solemnity;  all  the  grandeur  and 
sublimity  of  the  ocean.  This  is  particularly  true  at  the 
magic  hour  of  refulgent  sunset.    Then  its  shifting  sands 


300  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

and  fantastically  formed  rocks — ^black  asphalts,  brown 
sandstones,  gray  and  rose  granites  which  are  massed  like 
groups  of  antediluvian  monsters — are  illumined  by  splen- 
dors of  color  and  phantasmagorias  of  light  which  trans- 
form the  most  ordinary  landscape  into  a  veritable  fairy- 
land. 

The  flanks  and  crest  of  Jebel  Sinjar,  a  picturesque  moun- 
tain range  on  our  right,  exhibit  the  same  riot  of  color,  the 
same  marvelous  contrasts  of  light  and  shade.  At  the  base 
there  is  the  delicate  violet  of  the  iris,  at  the  summit  the 
glowing  red  of  the  poppy,  and  above  all  is  the  soft,  tur- 
quoise blue  of  the  deep,  steady  empyrean. 

Then  there  appears  the  wonderful,  mystic  afterglow 
which  completely  transfigures  everything  on  mountain  and 
plain,  and  lights  up  the  scene  with  a  light  that  rarely  shines 
in  our  cloudy,  mist-enveloped  clime.  In  the  clear  western 
sky,  the  evening  star  hangs  like  a  solitaire.  Presently 
there  flash- out  in  rapid  succession  the  stars  and  constella- 
tions which,  in  the  long  ago,  were  the  wonder  and  the  de- 
light of  the  shepherds  and  the  priest  astronomers  of 
Assyria  and  Chaldea. 

Near  our  tent  the  camels,  relieved  of  their  burdens,  are 
quietly  browsing  on  the  scanty  broom  and  brushwood  which 
in  these  parts  constitute  their  chief  sustenance.  Their 
Bedouin  masters,  seated  in  a  circle,  around  an  odorous 
camp  fire,  entertain  one  another  by  recounting  past  experi- 
ences and  adventures  and  by  singing  their  favorite  songs, 
most  of  which  are  in  a  minor  key  and  characterized  by  the 
frequent  occurrence  of  the  terrible  name  of  Allah,  which 
gives  to  their  doleful  chant  a  note  of  sadness  that  once 
heard  one  can  never  forget.  Amid  such  scenes  of  nomadic 
life,  we  welcome  the  hour  of  sweet  repose,  when,  beguiled 
by  gentle  dreams,  we,  like  the  lotus-eaters  of  old,  soon 
become  quite  unconscious  of  the  fleeting  passage  of  time 
and  of  all  the  world  beside.^^ 


28  "In  such  circumstances,"  writes  one  who  knew  the  desert  well,  "the  mind 
is  influenced  through  the  body.    Though  your  mouth  glows  and  your  skin  is 


FROM  THE  EUPHRATES  TO  THE  TIGRIS      301 

On  the  last  day  of  our  journey  between  Djerabis  and 
Mosul,  while  contemplating  at  times  the  prevailing  "abomi- 
nation of  desolation"  of  a  ruin-covered  waste,  we  continu- 
ally referred  to  the  novel  excitement  which  had  been  ours 
as  we  gazed  on  the  hallowed  land  of  the  patriarchs  about 
Haran  and  viewed  in  Nisibis  the  fate  of  a  once  splendid 
home  of  letters  and  culture.  Traversing  a  region  of  hoar 
antiquity,  whose  annals  and  legends  so  captivate  the  fancy, 
where  turbaned  nomads,  happy  in  their  felt  tents,  enjoy 
the  unrestricted  freedom  of  the  desert,  ours  was  a  sensation 
and  a  pleasure  unknown  in  the  rush  and  turmoil  and  savage 
energy  of  our  high-pressure  civilization  of  Europe  and 
America.  And  while  the  eye  delighted  in  the  marvelous 
succession  of  contrasts  in  the  landscapes — ^where  rugged 
mountains  alternate  with  endless  plains  and  ''spots  of 
verdure  lie  strewn  like  islets  amid  shoreless  seas  of  sand" 
— the  mind  ever  pondered  on  the  whirlpool  of  vicissitudes 
which  has  made  Mesopotamia  unique  among  the  regions  of 
the  earth — ^where,  during  its  long  and  eventful  history, 
civilization  has  been  succeeded  by  barbarism  and  grandeur 
by  decay  and  death.  But  as  one  surveyed  this  land  of 
former  glory  and  present  desolation,  one  loved  to  think 
that  ''before  his  eyes  the  sands  of  an  expiring  epoch  were 
fast  running  out;  and  the  hour-glass  of  destiny  was  once 

parched  with  heat,  yet  you  feel  no  languor,  the  effect  of  humid  heat;  your 
lungs  are  lightened,  your  sight  brightens,  your  memory  recovers  its  tone  and 
your  spirits  become  exuberant;  your  fancy  and  imagination  are  powerfully 
aroused  and  the  wildness  and  sublimity  of  the  scenes  around  you  stir  up  all 
the  energies  of  your  soul — whether  for  exertion,  danger  or  strife.  Your  morale 
improves;  you  become  frank  and  cordial,  hospitable  and  single-minded:  the 
hypocritical  politeness  and  the  slavery  of  civilization  are  left  behind  you  in 
the  city.  .  .  .  All  feel  their  hearts  dilate  and  their  pulses  beat  strong  as  they 
look  down  from  their  dromedaries  upon  the  glorious  desert.  Where  do  we  hear 
of  a  traveler  being  disappointed  by  it?  It  is  another  illustration  of  the 
ancient  truth  that  Nature  returns  to  man,  however  unworthily  he  has 
treated  her.  And  believe  me,  when  once  your  tastes  have  conformed  to  the 
tranquillity  of  such  travel,  you  will  suffer  real  pain  in  returning  to  the 
turmoil  of  civilization.  You  will  anticipate  the  bustle  and  confusion  of 
artificial  life,  its  luxury  and  its  false  pleasures  with  repugnance.  Depressed 
in  spirits  you  will  for  a  time  after  your  return  feel  incapable  of  bodily  or 
mental  exertion.  The  air  of  cities  will  suffocate  you  and  the  care-worn  and 
cadaverous  countenances  of  citizens  will  haunt  you  like  a  vision  of  judg- 
ment." Personal  Narrative  of  a  Pilgrimage  to  Al-Medinah  and  Meocah,  Vol. 
I,  pp.  150,  151  (by  Richard  F.  Burton,  London,  1893). 


302     FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

again  being  turned  on  its  base."  It  was  with  this  reflec- 
tion that  we  completed  another  lap  of  our  journey  and  that, 
travel-worn,  we  finally  arrived  at  Mosul,  the  once  famous 
emporium  on  the  arrow-swift  Tigris." 

2*  A  celeritate  Tigris  inoipit  vocari.    Ita  appellant  Medi  sagittam.    Pliny, 
Naturalia  Historia,  VI,  XXVII. 


CHAPTER  Xin 

THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST 

Nestobian",  Monophysite  and  Other  Eastern  Churches 

Holy  Father,  keep  them  in  Thy  name  whom  Thou  hast 
given  me ;  that  they  may  be  one,  as  we  also  are. 

St.  John,  xvii:  11. 

Our  arrival  at  Mosul  was  to  us  a  cause  of  gratification 
for  many  reasons.  Not  the  least  of  these  was  the  very  cor- 
dial reception  tendered  us  by  the  good  Sons  of  St.  Dominic 
whose  hospitality  to  wayfarers  like  ourselves  has  always 
been  as  proverbial  as  that  of  the  Franciscans.  Indeed,  the 
friars  of  both  these  venerable  religious  orders  seem,  par- 
ticularly in  the  Orient,  to  have  made  their  own,  the  beau- 
tiful Armenian  saying  ''A  guest  comes  from  God." 

As  for  myself,  I  was  specially  glad  to  be  in  this  famous 
old  city,  for  it  is  located  on  the  Tigris  which  I  was  almost 
as  eager  to  see  as  the  Euphrates.  The  names  of  both  of 
these  celebrated  rivers  had  ever  been  associated  in  my  mind 
from  my  earliest  youth  and,  seeing  their  tawny  waters  for 
the  first  time,  they  evoked  many  pleasant  memories  of  boy- 
hood days  when  I  loved  to  picture  to  myself  the  remarkable 
peoples" who  dwelt  in  the  fertile  land  bounded  by  these  two 
great  waterways,  peoples  whose  marvelous  achievements 
impressed  me  more  then  than  did,  in  maturer  years,  the 
matchless  deeds  of  those  incomparable  men  who  dwelt  on 
the  banks  of  the  Nile  and  the  Tiber. 

But  my  chief  reason  for  rejoicing  on  our  arrival  at  Mosul 
was  that  I  there  had  a  rare  opportunity  to  complete  observa- 
tions which,  during  the  greater  part  of  our  journey,  I  had 
been  making  on  the  condition  and  influence  of  what  are 
known  as  the  Eastern  Churches.    I  do  not  speak  of  an 

303 


304  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

"Eastern  Church,"  about  which  so  much  has  been  written, 
for  such  an  organization,  as  contradistinguished  from  a 
Western  Church,  is  mere  fiction. 

The  noted  Venetian  traveler,  Marco  Polo,  in  writing  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Mosul,  declares : 

There  is  a  kind  of  people  called  Arabi  and  these  worship 
Mohammed.^  Then  there  is  another  description  of  people 
who  are  called  Nestorian  and  Jacobite  Christians.  These 
have  a  Patriarch  whom  they  call  the  Jatolic  [he  means 
Catholic]  and  this  Patriarch  creates  Archbishops  and 
Abbots  and  Prelates  of  all  other  degrees  and  sends  them 
into  every  quarter,  as  to  India,  to  Baudas  [Bagdad]  or  to 
Cathay,  just  as  the  Pope  of  Rome  does  in  Latin  countries. 
For  you  must  know  that  though  there  is  a  very  great  num- 
ber of  Christians  in  those  countries,  they  are  all  Jacobites 
and  Nestorians;  Christians,  indeed,  but  not  in  the  fashion 
enjoined  by  the  Pope  of  Rome,  for  they  come  short  in 
several  points  of  the  faith.^ 

Nearly  five  and  a  half  centuries  after  the  illustrious  Vene- 
tian traveler  had  dictated  these  lines,  the  erudite  historian 
and  Orientalist,  von  Hammer-Purgstall,  referring  to  the 
inhabitants  of  the  terraced  city  of  Mardin,  located  between 
Edessa  and  Mosul,  wrote:  "There  Sunnis  and  Shias, 
Catholic  and  Schismatic  Armenians,  Jacobites,  Nestorians, 
Chaldaeans,  Sun,  Fire,  Calf  and  DevilT  worshipers  dwell 
one  over  the  head  of  the  other.  * ' ' 

These  two  quotations  from  writers  who  lived  in  such 
widely  separated  periods  give  one  a  fair  idea  of  what  has 
long  been  the  religious  affiliations  of  the  greater  part  of  the 
population  of  Mesopotamia  and  what,  with  slight  changes, 
they  are  still  to-day. 

Dismissing  the  Moslems  and  Pagans  just  mentioned  as 
without  the  purview  of  this  chapter,  a  few  pages  on  the 

1  We  have  seen  in  a  previous  chapter  how  unfounded  is  this  statement. 

2  The  Book  of  8er  Marco  Polo,  Vol.  I,  p.  60  (trans,  by  H.  Yule,  London, 
1903). 

i  Geschichte  der  Ilchaner,  Vol.  I,  p.  191   (Darmstadt,  1842). 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  305 

different  Christian  bodies  above-mentioned  will  aid  the 
reader  to  form  an  intelligent  estimate  of  the  present  con- 
dition of  some  of  these  Churches  of  the  East  and  of  their 
relations  to  one  another. 

We  begin  with  the  Nestorians  as  they  constitute  the  oldest 
of  the  existing  dissident  Churches.  The  Arians,  Nova- 
tians,  Paulinists,  and  scores  of  other  heretics  who  gave  such 
trouble  to  the  early  Christian  Church  have  long  disap- 
peared and  only  students  of  heresiology  now  know  what 
doctrines  they  really  professed. 

The  distinguishing  tenet  of  Nestorianism,  which  owes  its 
origin  to  Nestorius,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  from  428 
to  431,  is  the  assertion  that  in  Christ  there  are  two  persons 
— the  human  and  the  divine — and  the  denial  that  the  Mother 
of  Christ  is  the  Mother  of  God.  The  Catholic  doctrine, 
as  defined  by  the  third  CEcumenical  Council  held  at  Ephesus 
in  431,  is  that  in  Christ  there  is  but  one  person — ^the  person 
of  the  Son  of  God — and  that  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary  is 
the  Mother  of  God — 0£ot6koc. 

From  its  beginning  Nestorianism  has  been  essentially  an 
eastern  organization  and  was  early  adopted  by  the  suc- 
cessors of  the  **Parthians,  Medes,  Elamites,  and  inhabitants 
of  Mesopotamia,"  who,  on  the  first  Pentecost,  were  so 
amazed  to  hear  the  Apostles  in  Jerusalem  speaking  in 
divers  tongues  the  wonderful  works  of  God.* 

On  account  of  political  and  other  reasons,  the  Nestorians 
soon  became  separated  from  the  rest  of  Christendom. 
Banished  from  Edessa  in  489  by  the  Emperor  Zeno,  they 
fled  to  Nisibis  which  then  belonged  to  Persia.  The  Persian 
King,  learning  that  they  did  not  profess  the  same  creed  as 
that  held  by  the  Byzantines,  with  whom  he  was  always  at 
war,  took  them  under  his  protection.  From  that  time  the 
Nestorian  Church,  which  eventually  became  almost  forgot- 
ten west  of  Mesopotamia,  had  an  extraordinary  develop- 
ment in  the  East.  For,  although  from  his  palace,  in  the 
twin  city  of  Seleucia-Ctesiphon,  the  Nestorian  Katholicos 

4  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  ii:    9,   11. 


306  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

sent  missionaries  to  Arabia  and  Syria  and  Egypt,  by  far 
the  larger  number  went  to  far-off  India  and  China.  In  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  when  the  Nestorian 
Church  attained  its  greatest  development,  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  Nestorian  Katholicos  rivaled  in  extent  that  of  the 
greatest  of  the  Byzantine  Patriarchs.  For  then  the  su- 
preme head  of  the  Nestorians  ruled  over  a  vast  number 
of  bishops  who  were  stationed  at  important  points  in  Asia 
from  Mosul  to  Malabar  and  from  Jerusalem  to  Java  and 
Peking." 

But  from  this  period,  the  Nestorian  Church,  which  had 
then  reached  the  zenith  of  its  greatness  and  power,  began 
rapidly  to  decline.  Its  downfall  was  hastened  by  the  Mos- 
lem hordes  of  Timur  which  then  swept  over  the  greater 
part  of  middle  and  western  Asia  and  subjected  to  the  fierc- 
est persecution  all  who  did  not  profess  the  religion  of 
Mohammed.  In  addition  to  the  disasters  which  followed  in 
the  footsteps  of  the  Tartars  from  Delhi  to  Damascus  and 
from  the  Aral  Sea  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  the  Nestorians 
suffered  greatly  from  schisms  and  internal  quarrels. 
These,  coupled  with  the  devastations  of  the  Tartars,  from 
which  they  never  recovered,  eventually  reduced  what  was 
the  greatest  Christian  organization  in  Asia  to  a  poor  and 
insignificant  community  in  the  bleak  region  of  Kurdistan 
on  the  frontier  between  Persia  and  Turkey. 

The  Nestorian  Patriarch  now  lives  at  Kochanes  between 
Lake  Van  and  Lake  Urmia  and  always  assumes  the  title 
Mar  Shimum — Lord  Simon.*    A  striking  peculiarity  of  the 

6  See  map  III  of  Heussi  and  Mulert's  Atlas  zur  Kirchengeschichte  for 
the  extensive  territory  occupied  by  the  Nestorian  Church  during  its  greatest 
development. 

6  The  dwelling  of  the  Patriarch,  as  described  by  a  noted  traveler  of  the 
last  century,  "is  solidly  built  of  hewn-stone  and  stands  on  the  very  edge 
of  a  precipice  overhanging  a  ravine  through  which  winds  a  branch  of  the 
Zab.  A  dark  vaulted  passage  led  us  into  a  room  scarcely  better  lighted 
by  a  small  window  closed  by  a  greased  sheet  of  coarse  paper.  The  tattered 
remains  of  a  felt  carpet,  spread  in  a  corner,  was  the  whole  of  its  furniture. 
The  garments  of  the  Patriarch  were  hardly  less  worn  and  ragged.  Even  the 
miserable  allowance  of  300  piastres,  about  £2  10s.,  which  the  Porte  had 
promised  to  pay  him  monthly  on  his  return  to  the  mountains  was  long 
in  arrears,  and  he  was  supported  entirely  by  the  contributions  of  his  faith- 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  307 

Patriarchy  is  that  it  has  been  hereditary  since  1450  and 
passes  from  uncle  to  nephew.  Realizing  their  miserable 
condition  in  the  spiritual  as  well  as  in  the  material  order, 
many  of  the  Patriarchs  during  the  last  two  centuries  have 
sought  reunion  with  Rome.  Thanks  to  the  untiring  mis- 
sionary labors  of  the  Dominicans  of  Mosul  the  majority 
of  the  Nestorians,  after  fourteen  centuries  of  separation, 
have  returned  to  the  faith  of  their  forefathers.  Sometimes 
the  inhabitants  of  several  villages  returned  together.  All 
those  in  and  around  Mosul  who  formerly  professed  the  faith 
of  Nestorians  are  now  members  of  what  is  known  as  the 
Chaldean  Church,  which  is  in  communion  with  Rome.  And 
according  to  the  latest  reports  from  the  Dominican  mis- 
sionaries of  Mosul,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  all  the 
remaining  Nestorians  will  soon — if  they  have  not  already 
done  so — accept  the  teaching  of  the  Council  of  Ephesus; 
and  the  schism,  which  for  more  than  fourteen  centuries  has 
kept  countless  myriads  outside  the  pale  of  the  Mother 
Church,  will,  like  many  other  schisms,  be  but  a  matter  of 
history. 

Those  who  may  still  cling  to  Nestorianism — if  there  yet 
be  any — ^have  long  practically  forgotten  the  great  questions 
that  so  distracted  the  Church  in  the  East  in  the  days  of 
Nestorius,  Diodore  of  Tarsus,  and  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia. 
Few  of  them  know  why  they  have  ever  been  separated  from 
the  Church  of  Rome,  and,  when  questioned  about  it,  are 
able  to  give  no  better  reason  than  ''Because  we  have  always 
been  separated."  With  the  exception  of  the  heresy  of 
Nestorius  which  was  condemned  at  Ephesus,  the  faith  of 
the  Nestorians  is  virtually  the  same  as  that  taught  by  the 
Church  of  Rome.  Like  other  Eastern  Churches,  the  Nes- 
torian  has  its  peculiar  liturgy,  rites,  laws,  customs,  but 
these  are  so  far  from  affecting  the  truths  of  faith,  that 
converts  from  Nestorianism  are  allowed  by  Rome  to  re- 

ful  but  poverty-stricken  flock.  Kochanes  was,  moreover,  still  a  heap  of 
ruins."  Discoveries  among  the  ruins  of  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  with  Travels 
in  Armenia,  Kurdistan  and  the  Desert,  p.  363  (by  A.  H.  Layard,  New- 
York,  1856). 


308  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

tain  all  its  peculiarities  of  worship  and  religious  observance, 
except  in  the  rare  cases  in  which  they  actually  conflict  with 
Catholic  dogma.  This  is  evidenced  in  the  rites  and  liturgy 
of  the  Chaldeans — the  Uniates,  or  converted  Nestorians — 
which  are  exactly  the  same  as  the  schismatic  Nestorians^ 
have  used  from  time  immemorial. 

When  in  1750  the  Dominican  missionaries  took  up  their 
abode  in  Mosul,  they  found  there  but  one  Catholic  family 
and  that  was  one  of  the  Chaldean  rite.  But  so  fruitful  was 
their  work  of  conversion  that  the  Patriarch  of  Mesopotamia 
and  Lower  Kurdistan  soon  afterwards  resigned  his  position 
and  his  nephew  and  successor  Mar  Yohannan  applied  for 
admission  into  the  Church  of  Rome.  He  was  followed  al- 
most immediately  by  five  of  his  bishops  and  by  the  greater 
part  of  his  people  in  and  around  Mosul. 

This  rapid  movement  Romeward  of  the  Nestorian  pastors 
and  their  flocks  is  partly  explained  by  the  fact  that  they 
saw  no  valid  reason  for  remaining  separated  from  a 
Church  which  taught  the  same  doctrines  as  they  themselves 
had  always  believed  and  which,  during  long  centuries  of 
persecution,  they  had  preserved  intact.  But  their  reunion 
with  Rome  was  hastened  by  the  tact  and  zeal  of  the  learned 
and  sympathetic  Dominicans  whom  all  soon  learned  to 
revere  aiid  love.  For  these  devoted  priests  not  only  aided 
these  poor  but  earnest  people  in  becoming  reconciled  with 
the  Mother  Church  on  the  most  lenient  terms,  but  they  also 
established  for  them  schools  and  asylums  and  hospitals 
where  both  souls  and  bodies  could  receive  much  needed 
care. 

In  Mosul  an  up-to-date  printing  establishment  was  in- 
stalled in  which  were  printed  the  Scriptures  and  other  books 
in  Arabic,  Syriac,  and  other  languages.  A  seminary  was 
founded  for  the  benefit  of  Chaldean  students  destined  for 
the  priesthood.  The  education  of  girls  was  entrusted  to 
the  highly  cultured  Dominican  Sisters  of  the  Presentation 
of  Tours,  France.  Not  only  did  they  assume  charge  of 
preparatory  and  normal  schools  but  they  also  opened  in^ 


THE  CHUECHES  OF  THE  EAST  309 

dustrial  schools  for  girls,  especially  for  the  working  girls 
of  the  city.  They  also  took  charge  of  dispensaries  where 
thousands  of  poor  and  sick  people  received  free  of  charge 
the  medicine  and  treatment  which  their  condition  required 
and  which,  before  the  arrival  of  these  ministering  angels 
of  mercy,  were  not  available. 

In  view  of  all  these  facts  is  there  anything  surprising  in 
the  final  return  of  the  followers  of  Nestorius  to  communion 
with  Eome?" 

The  history  of  the  Jacobites,  of  whom  Marco  Polo  found 
many  in  Mosul — '  *  Christians  indeed,  but  not  in  the  fashion 
enjoined  by  the  Pope  of  Rome" — differs  but  little,  except 
in  one  point  of  doctrine,  from  that  of  the  Nestorians.  This 
point  of  doctrine  is  in  one  respect  the  very  opposite  of  the 
distinguishing  dogma  of  the  Nestorians.  For,  whereas  the 
Nestorians  divided  Christ  into  two  persons  against  the 
Catholic  doctrine  which  maintained  His  unity,  the  Jacobites, 
contrary  to  Catholic  teaching,  asserted  that  there  is  in 
Christ  but  one  nature  and  not  two,  the  human  and  the 
divine,  as  decreed  in  451,  by  the  (Ecumenical  Council  of 
Chalcedon.®  It  is  because  this  heresy  teaches  the  fusion  of 
Our  Lord's  humanity  and  divinity  that  it  is  called  Mono- 
physitism.  And  because,  in  its  early  stages,  it  was  so  ar- 
dently championed  by  Eutyches,  an  archimandrite  of  a 
monastery  outside  the  walls  of  Constantinople,  it  is  also 
known  as  Eutychianism.  The  Syrian  Monophysites  are 
usually  called  Jacobites,  after  Jacob  Zanzalos,  who  was  an 
early  and  zealous  propagator  of  the  heresy. 

So  far  as  statistics  are  available  the  number  of  Jacobites 
is  somewhat  larger  than  was  that  of  the  Nestorians  when 
the  Dominicans  began  to  lead  them  back  to  obedience  to 

i"La  progression  des  Chr^tiang  a  ete  la  suivante;  en  1750,  z5ro;  en 
1856,  de  30,000  a  40,000;  en  1900,  66,000.  Tout  donne  h  esp^rer  que  le 
retour  d^finitif  des  Neatoriens  h  la  foi  portera  hientot  et  ddflnitivement 
ce  nombre,  si  ce  n'est  deja  un  fait  accomplit,  a  140,000."  Lea  Missions  CathO' 
Uques  Francaises  an  XlXe  Si^ele,  p.  271    (Paris,   1900). 

8  For  the  doermatic  definitions  of  the  Church  at  the  General  Council8  of 
Ephesus  and  Chaleedon  aj^ainst  the  heresies  of  Nestorius  and  Eutyches  SM 
Denzinger's  Enchiridion,  pp.  52,  65. 


310  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Rome.  They  are  scattered  throughout  Syria  and  Meso- 
potamia and  Malabar.  Their  Patriarch,  who  always  takes 
the  name  Ignatius  with  the  title  of  Antioch,  resides  at 
Mardin  or  Diarbekir  on  the  Upper  Tigris  to  the  northwest 
of  Mosul.  Although  they  all  talk  Arabic,  the  Jacobites  use 
the  Syrian  liturgy  of  St.  James. 

In  consequence  of  the  missionary  labors  of  the  Francis- 
cans, Dominicans,  and  Capuchins  the  majority  of  the 
Jacobites  are  again  in  communion  with  Rome  under  the 
name  of  Melchites  or  Syrian  Uniates.  Their  Patriarch 
with  the  title  of  Antioch  usually  resides  at  Beirut.  He  has 
eight  suffragans,  most  of  whom  live  in  Mesopotamia.  From 
present  indications  the  day  does  not  seem  distant  when  the 
Jacobites,  like  the  Nestorians,  shall  once  more  be  reunited 
with  the  See  of  Peter,  from  which  they  have  so  long  been 
separated. 

Another  Eastern  Church  which  has  long  been  cut  off  ^rom 
the  rest  of  Christendom  is  that  of  the  Armenians.  Like 
the  Jacobites,  the  Armenians  early  adopted  Monophysi- 
tism,  a  doctrine  which  they  still  retain.  Although  many 
of  them  have  returned  to  Rome,  the  majority,  known  as 
Gregorians  from  St.  Gregory  the  Illuminator,  the  apostle 
of  Armenia,  are  still  Monophysites.  They  have  on  vari- 
ous occasions  sought  corporate  reunion  with  the  Church 
of  their  fathers,  and,  judging  by  their  friendly  attitude 
towards  Catholics,  this  union  may  take  place  at  any  time. 

A  peculiarity  about  the  Armenian  Church  is  its  intensely 
national  character.  It  is  indeed  the  most  national  church 
in  the  world,  for  its  only  members — ^whether  Gregorians  or 
Uniates — are  Armenians.  It  is  their  religion  which  has 
held  the  Armenians  together  in  spite  of  centuries  of  perse- 
cution by  Persian  satraps ;  in  spite  of  the  tyranny  of  Seljuk 
sultans ;  in  spite  of  the  pogroms  of  Russian  autocrats.  To 
no  other  people  in  the  world,  save  only  those  of  the  real 
*'Niobe  of  nations" — the  long-suffering  but  invincible  sons 
and  daughters  of  Erin — ^has  their  religion  served  as  a 
stronger  bond  of  union  than  it  has  to  the  cruelly  harassed 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  311 

and  downtrodden  Armenians.  It  has  enabled  them  with 
unparalleled  tenacity  to  preserve  their  language  and  litera- 
ture and  live  ever  in  the  hope  that  they  may  one  day — 
God  grant  it  may  be  soon! — achieve  their  national  inde- 
pendence. 

Statistics  regarding  the  number  of  Armenians  are  very 
unsatisfactory.  If  one  were  to  believe  all  the  horrible  tales 
circulated  during  the  last  few  decades  about  wholesale 
massacres  of  Armenians  by  Turks  and  Kurds  and  Russians, 
one  would  have  to  conclude  that  the  brave  and  patriotic 
race  is  now  extinct.  Fortunately  we  have  positive  evidence 
that  these  bloodcurdling  reports  have,  for  political  and 
other  un-altruistic  motives,  been  greatly  exaggerated  and 
that  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  number  of  Armeni- 
ans still  living  in  what  was  once  the  Ottoman  Empire  is  not 
far  from  three  millions. 

The  Katholikos  of  the  Gregorian  Church,  who  is  the  suc- 
cessor of  the  old  line  of  Armenian  Patriarchs  descended 
from  St.  Gregory  the  Illuminator,  resides  in  the  famous 
monastery  of  Etchimiadzin  near  Erivan  in  Russian  Ar- 
menia. This  monastery,  which  has  been  the  seat  of  the 
Patriarchs  for  nearly  five  centuries,  was  formally  ceded 
to  Russia,  after  the  Russo-Persian  War,  in  1828,  and  since 
that  time  the  Katholikos  has  been  subject  to  a  Muscovite 
process  of  Russianization  which  has  left  him  so  little  liberty 
of  action  that  his  patriarchate  has  been  reduced  to  what  is 
virtually  only  a  primacy  of  honor. 

In  Turkey  the  Armenian  Church  is  largely  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  government.  For,  as  far  back  as  1461,  the  Sul- 
tan Mohammed  II,  in  order  to  have  the  Primate  of  this 
Church  under  his  direction,  raised  the  bishop  of  Constanti- 
nople to  the  dignity  of  Patriarch.  As  a  result  of  this  arbi- 
trary action  of  the  Sultan  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople 
and  not  the  Katholikos  of  Etchimiadzin  has  ever  since  been 
the  real  primate  of  all  the  Armenians  in  the  Ottoman  Em- 
pire. 

In  addition  to  the  two  Patriarchs  just  named,  the  Arme- 


312  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

nian  Church  counts  two  others.  For  some  centuries  ago, 
as  the  result  of  schism  and  usurpation,  it  was  forced  to 
recognize  the  self-styled  Patriarchs  of  Jerusalem,  and  Sis 
in  Cilicia.  But,  although  the  schism  has  been  healed,  the 
Patriarchs  are  still  tolerated.  They  are,  however,  only 
titular  and  have  no  jurisdiction  as  such. 

Monophysitism  was  embraced  not  only  by  the  Jacobites 
and  Armenians  but  also  by  a  large  part  of  the  people  of 
Egypt.  It  was  these  Egyptian  Monophysites  who  consti- 
tuted what  has  since  been  known  as  the  Coptic  Church. 
Like  the  Jacobites  and  Armenians,  the  Copts,®  since  their 
schism  has  been  out  of  communion  with  the  rest  of  Christen- 
dom, have  suffered  all  the  persecutions  and  been  involved 
in  all  the  internal  dissensions  that  have  been  the  lot  of  the 
other  schismatics  of  the  East. 

The  Copts  of  Egypt  now  number  about  half  a  million 
souls.  Their  chief  ecclesiastical  ruler,  who  usually  resides 
in  Cairo,  is  the  Patriarch  of  Alexandria.  He  pretends  to 
be  the  direct  successor  of  the  Evangelist  St.  Mark,  the 
first  bishop  of  Alexandria,  and  claims  jurisdiction  not  only 
over  Egypt  but  over  Abyssinia  as  well.  Like  the  other 
Eastern  Churches,  that  of  the  Copts  has  its  own  peculiar 
rites  and  customs.  She  uses  old  Coptic  in  her  liturgy 
although  it  has  for  centuries  been  a  dead  language  and  is 
no  longer  understood  by  any  of  her  priests.  As  is  the  case 
with  most  of  the  Nestorians  and  Jacobites,  the  language  of 
the  Copts  is  Arabic.  And  like  the  sparsely  scattered 
schismatics  of  Syria  and  Mesopotamia,  the  great  majority 
of  the  Copts  and  Abyssinians  live  in  a  state  of  extreme 
poverty  and  ignorance,  although  their  more  fortunate  coun- 
trymen and  coreligionists  are  now  making  efforts  to  ele- 
vate them  in  the  social  scale  and  give  them  some  of  the 
benefits  of  an  elementary  education. 

In  consequence  of  the  missionary  activities  of  Francis- 


8  The  word  Copt  is  apparently  derived  from  the  middle  part  of  the  Greek 
word  Aigyptoa  which  means  Egyptian.  It  is,  however,  always  used  to 
indicate  a  member  of  the  Egyptian  Monophysite  Church. 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  313 

cans,  Capuchins,  Jesuits,  and  Lazarists  there  are  now  many 
Uniate  Copts  and  Abyssinians  and  their  number  is  grad- 
ually increasing.  Like  the  Uniate  Syrians,  the  Uniate 
Copts  are  called  Melchites.^"  The  Primate  of  the  Melchites 
bears  the  title  of  **  Patriarch  of  Antioch,  Alexandria, 
Jerusalem  and  all  the  East."  On  specially  solemn  occa- 
sions he  is  called  "Father  of  Fathers,  Shepherd  of  Shep- 
herds, High  Priest  of  High  Priests  and  Thirteenth  Apos- 
tle." Although  he  spends  some  weeks  annually  at  Jeru- 
salem and  Alexandria,  where  he  administers  the  affairs  of 
his  flock  through  vicars,  he  resides  during  the  greater  part 
of  the  year  in  Damascus.  The  liturgy  used  by  the  Mel- 
chites is  the  Byzantine  which  is  usually  celebrated  in  the 
Arabic  language.  On  certain  very  solemn  occasions,  how- 
ever, the  language  of  the  liturgy  is  Greek. 

Unique  among  all  Eastern  Churches  is  that  of  the 
Maronites.  The  members  of  this  interesting  and  flourish- 
ing communion  are  all  Catholics  and  it  is  their  proud  boast 
that  their  Church  has  never  been  tainted  by  heresy.  It 
is  certain,  however,  that  they  were  once  Monothelites  and 
taught  a  doctrine  which  was  but  a  veiled  form  of  Mono- 
physitism.  But  this  heresy  they  abandoned  at  the  time  of 
the  Crusades  when  their  Patriarch  made  his  submission  to 
Rome.  Since  then,  despite  partial  defections  and  centuries 
of  oppression  on  the  part  of  their  schismatic  and  Moham- 
medan neighbors,  their  faith  has  been  of  practically  unin- 
terrupted orthodoxy. 

The  Maronites  constitute  almost  the  entire  population  of 
the  Lebanon.  There  is  besides  a  considerable  number  in 
Western  Syria,  Cyprus,  Egypt,  and  Palestine.  According 
to  the  most  reliable  estimates  available  their  total  number 
is»  about  three  hundred  thousand."    The  usual  place  of 

r  ' 

loMelchite  is  a  Graeco-Syriac  word  which  signifies  imperial.  It  was  given 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  Monophysite  schism  to  those  Christians  in  Syria, 
Palestine,  and  Egypt  who  accepted  the  decrees  of  Chalcedon  and  remained 
loyal  to  the  Emperor  in  Constantinople  and  to  the  Catholic  Church.  The  name 
is  now  applied  to  the  Uniates  of  these  lands. 

11  Cf.  Verfassung  und  gegenwartiger  Beatand  SdmtiUcler  Kirohen  dea 
Orients,  p.  384    (by  I.  Silbernagl,  Rengensburg,   1904). 


314  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

residence  of  their  Patriarch'  is  the  great  monastery  of  St. 
Mary  of  Kanobin  in  the  Lebanon  where  for  centuries  the 
Maronite  Patriarchs  have  found  their  last  resting  place. 
The  title  of  the  Maronite  Patriarch  is  Patriarchus  Anti- 
ochenus  Maronitarum,  but,  curiously  enough,  this  Antio- 
chene  title  is  shared  with  him  by  no  fewer  than  five  other 
Patriarchs,  two  of  whom  are  schismatical  and  three  Catho- 
lic. These  are  the  schismatic  Patriarchs  of  the  Jacobite 
and  Orthodox  Churches  and  the  Melchite,  Syrian  Catholic, 
and  Latin  Patriarchs,  the  last  named  of  whom  is  only 
titular.  And  strange  to  say,  not  one  of  these  six  Patri- 
archs lives  in  Antioch.  The  language  used  in  the  Maronite 
liturgy  is  ordinarily  Syriac.  But  to  priests  who  are  not 
sufficiently  familiar  with  Syriac,  permission  is  given  to 
perform  the  liturgy  in  Arabic — but  Arabic  written  Syriac 
characters. 

But  a  word  needs  to  be  said  about  the  so-called  Church 
of  St.  Thomas  in  Malabar.  Although  Malabar  Christians 
love  to  trace  the  origin  of  their  Church  to  St.  Thomas  the 
Apostle,  it  seems  more  probable  that  it  was  founded  by 
Nestorian  missionaries  when  their  activities  extended  over 
a  great  part  of  Asia.  At  any  rate,  they  were  once  Nes- 
torians.  At  a  later  period  most  of  them  became  Mono- 
physites.  Now,  however,  the  majority  of  them  are  in  com- 
munion with  Rome  under  the  name  "Uniates  of  Malabar,'* 
with  a  peculiar  rite  of  their  own  called  the  **Rite  of 
Malabar." 

The  different  Churches  which  have  engaged  our  atten- 
tion in  the  preceding  pages  and  which  cannot  fail  to  enlist 
the  interest  of  the  observant  traveler  in  the  Orient,  suggest 
at  least  two  questions  which  demand  an  answer.  What  was 
originally  the  real  cause  of  these  schismatic  organizations 
which  have  no  communion  with  one  another?  And  how 
explain  the  tenacity  with  which  each  of  them,  during  more 
than  fourteen  centuries,  has  clung  to  its  peculiar  rites  and 
customs  and  liturgies,  and  despite  all  the  vicissitudes  of 


THE  CHUECHES  OF  THE  EAST  315 

war  and  conquest,  has  preserved  them  intact  to  the  pres- 
ent day? 

In  answer  to  the  first  part  of  the  question  it  is  usually 
asserted  that  the  cause  of  each  of  the  dissident  Churches 
in  question  was  some  specific  heresy.  This  is  the  truth 
but,  as  history  proves,  it  is  not  the  whole  truth.  Misun- 
derstanding, deception,  national  jealousies  and  aspirations 
had  probably  as  much—if  not  more — to  do  with  the  separa- 
tion of  these  Churches  from  Rome  as  the  particular  heresies 
with  which  they  are  usually  associated. 

A  striking  proof  of  this  assertion  is  the  peculiar  manner 
in  which  Monophysitism  was  introduced  into  Egypt.  The 
people  of  the  Nile  Land  readily  embraced  it  because  they 
were  under  the  impression  that  it  was  the  teaching  of  St. 
Cyril,  the  Patriarch  of  Alexandria.  As  the  chief  opponent 
of  Nestorius  and  the  valiant  champion  of  Our  Lady's  title 
of  Mother  of  God  at  the  Council  of  Ephesus,  he  was 
regarded  by  the  Egyptians  as  their  national  hero  and 
acclaimed  their  Christian  Pharaoh.  They  were  confirmed 
in  this  view  because  Dioscur,  Cyril's  successor  as  Patriarch 
of  Alexandria,  was  an  avowed  advocate  of  Monophysitism. 
When  his  teaching  was  condemned  at  the  Council  of  Chal- 
cedon  and  he  was  deposed  from  the  office  of  bishop,  the 
people  of  Egypt,  who  were  always  loyal  to  their  ecclesias- 
tical Pharaoh,  rallied  to  his  support.  They  did  not  stop 
to  examine  the  merits  of  the  case.  The  fact  that  the  doc- 
trine, for  which  their  Patriarch  was  deposed,  was  known  to 
be  opposed  to  "the  faith  of  the  tyrant  of  the  Bosphorus" — 
as  the  Byzantine  Emperor  was  called — was  an  additional 
reason  why  it  approved  itself  to  the  ever  patriotic  Egyp- 
tians. ''Lurking  under  the  dispute  about  one  or  two  natures 
in  Christ  was  the  old  national  feeling,  the  old  hatred  of 
the  Roman  power.""  The  decree  of  Chalcedon  and  the 
consequent  deposition  of  their  Patriarch  gave  occasion  for 
a  recrudescence  of  this  hatred  of  Caesar  and  Caesar's 
religion  and  for  an  anti-imperialistic  outbreak  in  Alexan- 

12  The  Orthodox  Eastern  Church,  p.  19  (by  A.  Fortescue,  London,  1908). 


316  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

dria  such  as  this  great  city  had  never  before  witnessed. 
Thenceforth  Monophysitism  in  its  opposition  to  Byzantine 
imperialism  was  identified  with  Egyptian  nationalism.  And 
when  the  Mohammedans  under  Amru  swept  over  Egypt, 
so  great  was  the  hatred  of  the  Copts  for  the  Melkites  that 
they  sided  with  the  Arabs  against  the  forces  of  Byzantium. 
But  this  with  Monophysitism  was  the  cause  of  their  down- 
fall. "The  great  days  when  the  Christian  Pharaoh  was  the 
chief  bishop  of  the  East  have  gone  forever. '^^^  And  by  a 
strange  irony  of  fate  it  was  Constantinople,  Alexandria's 
detested  rival,  that  was  eventually  to  hold  the  second  place 
among  the  patriarchates  of  the  Church — a  position  which, 
since  the  days  of  St.  Mark,  had  been  held  by  the  world- 
famous  metropolis  of  Egypt. 

The  events  which  attended  the  introduction  of  Mono- 
physitism into  Syria  were  almost  a  repetition  of  those  which 
occurred  on  the  entrance  of  this  heresy  into  Egypt.  And 
the  causes  which  led  to  the  introduction  of  Monophysitism 
into  the  two  countries  and  favored  its  development  there 
were  practically  the  same.  For  Antioch,  the  capital  of  the 
Seleucids,  as  well  as  Alexandria,  the  capital  of  the  Ptole- 
mies, was  a  Greek  city  and  each  from  the  disruption  of 
Alexander 's  Empire  had  been  a  center  of  Greek  civilization 
and  culture.  But  neither  the  Syrians  nor  the  Egyptians  had 
ever  become  reconciled  to  the  intrusion  of  the  Macedonians 
or  other  Greek-speaking  peoples  into  their  native  lands. 
Nor  was  their  antagonism  to.  foreign  domination  diminished 
when  their  countries  became  appanages  of  Rome  and  Byzan- 
tium. They  clung  as  tenaciously  as  ever  to  the  laws  and 
customs  and  languages  of  their  fathers  and  welcomed  an 
opportunity  of  concealing  under  the  guise  of  heresy  their 
hatred  of  CsBsar's  religion  as  well  as  their  ill-concealed 
disloyalty  to  Caesar 's  empire. 

In  spite  of  the  repeated  efforts  of  the  Emperors  of 
Constantinople  to  conciliate  their  disaffected  subjects  in 
Egypt  and  Syria  and  to  suppress  a  heresy  that  was  a 

18  Fortescue,  op.  cit.,  p.  15. 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  317 

constant  menace  to  the  State,  all  their  endeavors  proved 
abortive.  And  when  the  Moslems  invaded  Syria  it  was  in 
Monophysitism  that  its  inhabitants  found  an  outlash  of 
their  long  pent-up  national  and  anti-imperial  feelings  which 
made  the  conquest  of  Islam  as  easy  in  the  Levant  as  it  had 
been  in  the  Delta  of  the  Nile.  But  the  penalty  paid  by 
Syria  for  its  disloyalty  and  schism  was  no  less  terrific 
than  that  which  reduced  Egypt  from  its  high  estate  and 
degraded  it  to  the  rank  of  a  dishonored  province  in  the 
ever-extending  dominion  of  the  Saracens.  For  just  as  it 
was  schism  that  led  to  the  downfall  of  Alexandria — the  seat 
of  the  greatest  and  most  celebrated  patriarchate  in  the 
East — so  was  it  schism  that  heralded  the  inglorious  collapse 
of  her  great  rival — Antioch,  the  third  city  of  the  empire — 
Antioch,  where  the  followers  of  the  Crucified  were  first 
called  Christians. 

What  has  been  said  of  Monophysitism  as  an  outlet  of 
national  feeling  in  Egypt  and  Syria  holds  equally  true  of 
it  in  Armenia.  Its  introduction  and  rapid  diffusion  was  in 
great  measure  due  to  jealousy  of  the  Orthodox  Church  and 
hatred  of  the  Byzantine  government.  But  far  more  than 
in  the  case  of  other  Eastern  Churches,  Monophysitism  is 
the  religious  bond  that  during  long  centuries  of  oppression 
and  persecution  held  the  Armenians  together  as  a  nation 
and  that,  especially  during  recent  times,  has  won  for  this 
long-suffering  people  the  sympathy  of  the  entire  civilized 
world. 

Only  those  who  have  traveled  in  the  Near  East  and 
studied  there  the  aspirations  of  its  peoples  can  fully  realize 
the  intense  national  feeling  of  the  Eastern  Churches.  Simi- 
larly only  those  who  have  carefully  studied  the  history  of 
these  various  ecclesiastical  bodies  can  duly  appreciate  their 
present  attitude  toward  the  great  Latin  Church  of  the 
West  and  understand  that  remarkable  conservatism  which 
has  ever  been  one  of  their  most  striking  characteristics. 

The  truth  is  that  in  all  the  Eastern  Churches— especially 
the  Armenian— national  loyalty  and  national  pride  count 


318  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

for  more  than  religious  conviction  or  dogmatic  teaching. 
This,  strange  as  it  may  appear,  means  that  the  nation  comes 
before  the  Church;  that  politics  takes  precedence  of 
theology. 

To  envisage  the  State  as  separated  from  the  Church, 
politics  as  distinct  from  religion,  as  we  do  in  the  West,  is 
as  alien  to  a  Syrian  or  an  Armenian  patriot  as  it  is  to  a 
Persian  mollah  or  an  Ottoman  grand  vizier.  For  this  reason 
the  Eastern  Churches,  like  the  theocratic  government  of 
Islam  to  which  they  have  so  long  been  subject,  have  always 
attributed  so  paramount  an  importance  to  everything  that 
specially  bears  on  their  national  life  and  character.  And 
they  have  been  confirmed  in  this  view  by  their  age-long 
treatment  by  the  Sublime  Porte  which,  in  organizing  its 
Christian  subjects,  made  religion  the  basis  of  their  nation- 
ality. Thus  the  Armenian  Church  was  made  Ermeni  Millet 
— the  Armenian  Nation ;  the  Orthodox  Church,  regarded  as 
inheriting  the  name  of  the  Roman  Empire,  became  Rum 
Millet — the  Roman  nation — ^while  Catholics  of  the  Latin  rite 
are  known  as  Latin  Millet — the  Latin  Nation.  And  so  it 
was  with  the  Churches  of  Egypt,  Syria,  Mount  Lebanon, 
and  the  various  other  Christian  Churches  in  the  vast  do- 
minions of  the  Ottoman  Sultan.^* 

From  the  foregoing  it  is  seen  that  among  Eastern  Chris- 
tians it  is  not  their  particular  church  that  counts  so  much 
as  their  millet.  This,  although  quite  an  artificial  nation,  is 
as  dear  to  them  as  our  fatherland  is  to  us,  while  in  compari- 
son all  matters  of  dogma  and  theology  are  quite  secondary. 
For  this  reason  it  is  that  there  are  rarely  any  conversions 
from  one  Eastern  Church  to  another.  And  for  this  reason, 
too,  it  is  that — as  has  well  been  observed — ''for  a  Jacobite 
to  turn  Orthodox  would  be  like  a  Frenchman  turning 
German." 

This  loyalty  of  the  schismatic  Christians  in  the  East  to 

14  Not  having  a  hierarchy,  the  Protestants  in  Turkey  do  not  constitute  a 
Millet.  The  Porte  has  consequently  organized  them,  consisting  chiefly 
of  a  small  number  of  converted  Armenians,  and  Syrians,  into  a  special  group 
under  the  Minister  of  Police. 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  319 

the  traditions  and  national  spirit  of  their  forebears  explains 
the  exceptional  conservatism  of  the  divers  Churches  to 
which  they  belong — the  tenacity  with  which  through  the 
ages  they  have  clung  to  their  particular  rites  and  customs 
and  retained  unchanged  their  special  liturgies  since  schism 
first  separated  them  from  their  mother  Church.  And  it  is 
this  intense  conservatism,  this  undying  loyalty  to  their 
millet  that  constitutes  the  greatest  barrier  to  the  reunion 
of  the  Eastern  Churches  with  the  primatial  Church  of 
Rome. 

Then,  too,  there  is  ever  before  them  the  terror-inspiring 
specter  of  Fragistan — Europe — ^which  portends  disasters 
innumerable.  It  is  the  horrid  old  phantom  of  the  land  of 
mists  and  shadows  which  has  been  haunting  the  East  since 
the  Trojan  War — ^which  reappeared  with  all  its  horrid 
accompaniments  of  rapine  and  death  during  the  invasion  of 
Alexander  the  Great  and  still  again  during  the  repeated 
and  long-continued  campaigns  of  the  Crusaders.  These 
days  of  unalterable  woe  have  so  seared  the  hearts  and 
memories  of  the  peoples  of  Western  Asia  that,  like  the 
Trojans  who  feared  the  Greeks  even  when  bearing  gifts, 
they  have  an  inborn  distrust  of  the  Feringees,"  of  their 
Churches,  their  schools,  their  laws,  their  governments. 

It  is  because  the  Holy  See  is  so  thoroughly  cognizant  of 
all  the  fears  and  jealousies  and  animosities  of  the  divers 
Eastern  Churches  and  because  she  fully  realizes  the  impor- 
tance which  they  severally  attach  to  their  millet  that  she 
has  always  been  so  prudent  and  considerate  in  her  dealings 
with  them  and  so  disposed  to  conciliate  them  and  remove 
everything  that  might  excite  suspicion  or  distrust.  Always 
yearning  for  a  return  of  the  misguided  children  who  so  long 
ago  left  her  fold,  she  is  ever  ready  to  make  any  reasonable 
concession,  so  long  as  it  does  not  affect  the  deposit  of  faith 
of  which  she  is  the  divinely  appointed  custodian.  Hence 
it  is  that,  in  her  eagerness  to  further  the  cause  of  the  reunion 

IB  Among  Orientals  a  common  designation  of  Franks,  which,  since  the  time 
of  the  Crusades,  has  been  applied  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  Western  Europe. 


320  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

for  which  she  has  always  so  ardently  longed,  she  has, 
in  her  supreme  wisdom,  ever  been  ready  to  allow  each 
Church  and  each  millet  to  retain  its  own  laws  and  customs, 
rites  and  liturgy,  language  and  hierarchy.  And  it  is 
because  of  this  wise  and  benevolent  policy  that  recent  years 
have  witnessed  the  return  to  Rome  of  so  many  thousands 
of  Eastern  schismatics — often  whole  dioceses  at  a  time — to 
the  venerable  Mother  Church  from  which  they  had  been 
lured  by  heresy  and  schism  in  the  long  ago.  So  far,  then, 
as  the  Eastern  Churches  mentioned  are  concerned,  it  would 
appear  from  the  foregoing  pages  that  the  day  is  not  very 
distant  when,  in  great  measure,  heresy  shall  be  adjured  and 
schism  healed. 

The  Orthodox  Churches 

Just  as  it  is  not  true  to  speak  of  an  Eastern  Church,  so  it 
is  still  less  true  to  speak  of  an  Orthodox  Church.  For, 
whereas  the  Eastern  Churches  we  have  considered  are  only 
seven  in  number,  the  Orthodox  Churches  are  no  fewer  than 
sixteen.  But  in  their  origin  a  very  marked  difference  is  to 
be  noted  between  the  Orthodox  and  other  Churches  of  the 
East. 

The  Nestorian  and  Monophysite  Churches,  as  we  have 
noted,  originated  in  certain  specific  heresies  of  Nestorius 
and  Eutyches.  But  the  false  doctrines  of  these  heresiarchs, 
as  has  been  observed,  contributed  less  towards  the  separa- 
tion of  the  Copts,  Syrians,  and  others  than  did  the  intense 
nationalism  of  these  peoples  who  wanted  only  a  pretext 
under  the  guise  of  heresy  for  concealing  their  disloyalty 
to  the  Byzantine  Empire.  Few  of  the  rank  and  file  knew 
anything  about  the  theological  issues  involved  in  the  false 
doctrines  of  their  leaders.  The  majority  of  them  were 
almost  as  ignorant  of  their  real  bearing  on  Catholic  dogma 
when  the  Councils  of  Ephesus  and  Chalcedon  issued  their 
famous  decrees  as  they  are  to-day.  With  possibly  a  few 
exceptions  not  even  the  clergy  or  the  bishops  of  the  East- 
em  Churches  are  now  aware  of  what  was  the  cardinal  issue 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  321 

of  their  schism  or  are  able  to  give  anything  more  than  the 
vaguest  and  most  shadowy  reason  for  their  continued  sepa- 
ration from  the  Church  of  Rome. 

The  Orthodox  Churches — ^which  embrace  those  Christians 
who  use  the  Byzantine  rite  but  are  not  in  communion  with 
the  Catholic  Church — unlike  the  Eastern  Churches  of 
which  we  have  spoken,  had  their  origin  not  in  heresy  but 
in  schism,  pure  and  simple.  Many  and  various  were  the 
causes  of  this  schism  but  the  chief  of  them  were  the  jealous- 
ies and  ambitions  of  the  Emperors  and  Patriarchs  of  Con- 
stantinople. And  these  jealousies  and  ambitions  began  at 
an  early  date  and  gradually  developed  until  they  eventually 
culminated  in  the  fatal  schism  precipitated  by  Photius  and 
Cerularius.    For 

After  that  Constantine  the  Eagle  turned 

Against  the  course  of  heaven  which  it  had  followed,^^ 

there  was  ever-increasing  friction  between  the  East  and 
the  West.  Constantine,  fully  occupied  with  the  affairs  of 
his  vast  empire,  had  wisely  allowed  the  Church  to  govern 
herself  "  but  such,  unfortunately,  was  not  the  policy  of  his 
successors.  Continually  interfering  in  ecclesiastical  affairs 
and  determining  questions  of  doctrine  by  imperial  decrees, 
they  soon  proved  themselves  the  w^orst  enemies  of  the 
Church's  freedom  of  action.  This  was  particularly  true 
during  the  Byzantine  period  which  extended  from  the  acces- 
sion of  Justinian  to  the  throne  to  the  fall  of  Constantinople 
under  Mohammed  II.  During  all  this  time  the  Emperors 
were  unremitting  in  their  efforts  to  make  the  Church  a  sub- 
ject of  the  State.  In  this  they  had  the  ever-ready  coopera- 
tion of  the  court  bishops,  whose  subservience  is  easily  ex- 
plained. Their  ambitions  were  great  and  they  counted  on 
their  imperial  masters  to  help  them  to  realize  their  unholy 
aspirations.    Nor  were  they  disappointed. 

18  Paradiso,  VI,  I,  2. 

17  Addressing  once  a  company  of  bishops  Constantine  declared :  "You 
are  bishops  whose  jurisdiction  is  within  the  Church;  I  also  am  a  bishop 
ordained  by  God  to  overlook  whatever  is  external  to  the  Church."  Eusebius, 
The  Life  of  Constantine,  IV,  24. 


322  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

When  in  330  Constantine  established  his  new  capital  on 
the  banks  of  the  Bosphorus  and  beautified  it  with  all  the 
artistic  treasures  he  was  able  to  remove  from  the  old  cap- 
ital on  the  Tiber,  the  ecclesiastical  head  of  Constantinople 
was  but  a  simple  bishop  under  the  metropolitan  of  Hera- 
clea  in  Thrace.  But  this  position  was  far  from  satisfying 
the  vaulting  ambition  of  one  who  suddenly  found  himself 
the  honored  chaplain  of  the  Emperor  and  his  court,  the 
bishop  of  the  magnificent  metropolis  that  was  thenceforth 
to  be  the  center  of  the  Roman  world.  What  was  now  to 
prevent  his  becoming  a  Patriarch — the  rival  even  of  the 
greatest  of  Patriarchs — of  the  successor  of  the  Galilean 
Fisherman  who  ruled  the  Universal  Church  from  his  palace 
in  the  old  capital  of  the  Caesars  ? 

What  indeed  was  to  prevent  him  from  making  his  dream 
a  glorious  reality?  The  Emperor,  he  felt  sure,  would  not 
thwart  his  ambitious  schemes.  Nor  did  he.  For  it  was  in 
harmony  with  his  policy  of  centralization  to  have  his  court 
bishop  raised  to  the  highest  hierarchical  position  possible. 
It  would  add  to  his  own  prestige,  it  would  stimulate  the 
loyalty  of  his  subjects,  and  would  augment  his  power  and 
influence  in  his  dealings  with  the  Church.  Nor  was  he  mis- 
taken. For  history  does  not  furnish  more  glaring  exam- 
ples of  the  tyranny  of  Caesar  in  the  things  of  God  nor  of 
more  ignoble  subjection  of  bishops  to  civil  power  than  were 
exhibited  in  the  Emperor's  arbitrary  and  contemptuous 
treatment  of  those  ecclesiastics — even  the  highest — ^who, 
in  return  for  the  encouragement  he  had  given  to  their 
unholy  ambitions,  had  become  the  willing  vassals  of  the 
imperial  government. 

In  the  evolution  of  the  See  of  Constantinople,  barely  fifty 
years  were  required  for  achieving  the  joint  plan  of  Bishop 
and  Emperor.  For  as  early  as  the  year  381  it  was  decreed 
by  a  council  summoned  by  the  Emperor  Theodosius  I, 
which  was  composed  of  only  a  comparatively  small  number 
of  Eastern  bishops,  and  at  which  the  Holy  See  had  no  repre- 
sentative, that  thenceforth  the  Bishop  of  Constantinople 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  323 

should  have  the  primacy  of  honor  after  the  Bishop  of 
Rome,  because  that  city — Constantinople — ^was  New  Rome. 
Thus,  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen,  the  Patriarch  of  Alexandria, 
who  had  previously  held  precedence  after  the  Pope  of 
Rome,  was  supplanted  by  the  Bishop  of  Byzantium.  The 
Pope  and  the  Alexandrian  Patriarch  protested  against  this 
outrageous  proceeding,  but  it  was  of  no  avail.  The  Em- 
peror and  his  subservient  bishops  had  achieved  their  ambi- 
tious purpose  and  had  virtually  divided  Christendom  into 
two  dominant  Patriarchates — that  of  the  West,  under 
Rome,  and  that  of  the  East,  under  Constantinople. 

It  was  this  realization  by  the  bishops  of  New  Rome  of 
their  most  cherished  aspiration — the  separation  of  the 
Church  into  two  great  Patriarchates — that  engendered  and 
fostered  that  jealousy  and  friction  that  ever  afterwards 
existed  between  Rome  and  Constantinople  and  which,  more 
than  anything  else,  led  to  that  ever-regrettable  schism  that 
still  separates  the  East  from  the  West.  For  the  position  of 
the  Church  of  New  Rome,  as  that  of  the  *' first  Church  of 
all  Eastern  Christendom,  was  so  exalted  that  her  bishops 
even  ventured  to  think  themselves  the  rivals  of  the  Roman 
Pope,  so  influential  that  when  at  last  they" — her  bishops — 
**fell  into  formal  schism,  they  dragged  all  the  other  eastern 
bishops  with  them."  " 

Besides  the  jealousy  and  overweening  ambition  of  syco- 
phantic bishops  and  tyrannical  Emperors,  there  were  other 
determining  causes  of  the  estrangement  between  the  East- 
ern and  Western  halves  of  Christendom  and  of  the  ultimate 
establishment  of  an  autonomous  Byzantine  episcopate. 

Not  the  least  of  these  was  the  difference  of  language.  For 
after  Constantinople  had  become  the  capital  of  the  Empire, 
the  Roman  Court  became  so  completely  Hellenized  that  the 
language  of  Virgil  and  Cicero  was  no  longer  heard  and  was 
understood  by  but  few.  Even  Photius,  the  most  eminent 
scholar  of  his  time,  was  ignorant  of  Latin.  For  this  reason, 
it  is  quite  possible  that,  aside  from  Byzantine  ambitions  and 

18  Fortescue,  op.  cit.,  p.  28. 


324  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

aspirations,  "the  divergence  of  tongues,  combined  with  the 
Hellenic  contempt  of  the  Latin  race  might  have  contributed 
to  ...  a  grouping  of  the  Eastern  Churches  around  the  See 
of  Constantinople,  and  thus  have  brought  about,  more  or 
less  rapidly,  the  formation  of  a  Greek  autonomy.  The 
Roman  Empire  had  succeeded  in  overpowering  and  even 
in  suppressing  the  tongues  of  all  the  other  conquered 
nations — such  as  the  Syriac,  Coptic,  Celtic,  Iberian,  Phoe- 
nician, Etruscan,  and  many  others — but  it  had  never  at- 
tempted anything  in  the  direction  of  the  Greek  language. 
The  result  was  that  Greek  ranked  side  by  side  with  Latin 
as  a  second  official  tongue  and  this  cause  brought  about  the 
division  of  the  Empire.  Nor  was  it  merely  a  question  of 
tongues.  Latins  as  well  as  Greeks  knew  and  recognized 
that  all  intellectual  culture  in  the  West  had  its  origin  in 
Greek  antiquity ;  hence  arose  a  superiority  that,  when  once 
the  Empire  was  divided,  promptly  gave  to  the  Greek  por- 
tion a  preponderance  over  the  Latin. ' '  ^® 

Nothing,  however,  was  so  calculated  to  stir  up  the  rancor 
of  the  Greeks  against  the  Latins  as  the  Pope's  coronation 
of  Charlemagne  as  Emperor  of  territory  that  was  regarded 
as  an  integral  part  of  the  Byzantine  Empire.  For  the 
Greeks  then  held  the  theory,  which  was  subsequently  so 
elaborated  by  Dante  in  his  De  Monarchia,  that  the  cause 
of  Caesar  was  the  cause  of  Christ  and  that  the  perfection  of 
the  Church  presupposed  the  integrity  of  the  Empire  and 

^9  The  Churches  Separated  from  Rome,  p.  151  (by  L.  Duchesne,  New  York, 
1907). 

"For  three  centuries  after  the  foundation  of  New  Rome,"  writes  Freeman, 
"Latin  remained  the  tongue  of  government,  law  and  warfare;  and  down 
to  the  last  days  of  the  Empire  survivals  of  its  use  in  that  character  still 
lingered  on.  .  .  .  But  Greek  was  from  the  beginning  the  tongue  of  litera- 
ture and  religion;  and,  even  under  Justinian  himself,  it  began  to  creep  into 
use  as  an  alternative  language  of  the  law  of  Rome. — Gradually  the  Greek 
tongue  displaced  Latin  for  all  purposes,  but  not  till  it  had  received  a  large 
infusion  of  Latin  technical  terms.  .  .  .  Save  this  technical  Latin  infusion 
the  tongue  of  Constantinople  was  thoroughly  Greek.  The  strange  spectacle 
was  there  to  be  seen  of  an  Emperor  of  the  Romans,  a  Patriarch  of  New 
Rome,  a  Roman  Senate  and  People  glorying  in  the  Roman  name,  and  deriv- 
ing their  whole  political  existence  from  a  Roman  source,  but  in  whose  eyes  the 
speech  of  Ennius  and  Tacitus  and  Claudian  was  simply  the  despised  idiom  of 
Western  heretics  and  barbarians."  Historical  Essays,  Third  Series,  pp.  248, 
249  (London,  1879). 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  325 

harmonious  relations  between  Pope  and  Emperor.  When, 
therefore,  the  Roman  Patriarch  set  up  a  rival  Augustus  in 
the  person  of  Charlemagne  and  divided  the  Roman  Empire, 
which,  under  Justinian,  extended  from  the  Euphrates  to 
the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  he  was  in  the  estimation  of  the 
Byzantines  guilty  of  high  treason.  Claiming  that  they 
alone  had  the  direct  line  of  imperial  continuity  they  would 
never  recognize  Charlemagne  as  anything  more  than  *'a 
barbarian  King  of  a  barbarian  people.'^ ^^  To  what  extent 
the  establishment  of  the  Empire  in  the  West  contributed 
to  existing  friction  and  to  the  fatal  rupture  between  New 
Rome  and  Old  Rome,  which  occurred  seventy  years  later,  is 
a  matter  of  speculation,  but  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that 
its  effect  on  the  exacerbated  temper  of  the  Greeks  was  far 
greater  than  is  usually  imagined. 

Although,  during  the  first  five  centuries  of  its  existence, 
the  See  of  Constantinople  had  several  times  been  out  of 
communion  with  Rome,  the  * '  Great  Schism, "  as  it  is  called, 
was  not  inaugurated  until  Photius,  with  the  connivance  of 
the  Byzantine  Emperor,  iniquitously  usurped  the  Patri- 
archate of  New  Rome.  After  the  death  of  this  intruder  in 
891  peace  was  again  restored  between  the  Eastern  and 
Western  Churches.  But  the  schism  that  had  been  engen- 
dered by  the  misunderstandings  and  animosities,  jealousies 
and  ambitions,  of  centuries  was  healed  only  temporarily. 
For  but  a  little  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  had  elapsed 
after  the  mortal  remains  of  Photius — ^who  has  been  called 
*  *  the  Luther  of  the  Orthodox  Church ' ' — ^had  been  moldering 
in  an  unknown  grave  when  the  Byzantine  Church  was  again, 
in  1050,  thrown  into  schism  by  the  overweening  ambition  of 
Michael  Cerularius,  whom  the  Emperor  Constantino  IX 
had,  in  violation  of  the  most  sacred  laws  of  the  Church, 

20  How  great  was  their  exasperation  at  the  Pope's  action  is  evinced  by  the 
language  they  addressed  to  Luitprand,  Archbishop  of  Cremona,  when,  in 
068,  he  went  on  an  embassy  to  Constantinople.  "But,"  they  indignantly 
declare,  "the  mad  and  silly  Pope  does  not  know  that  St.  Constantine  trans- 
ferred the  imperial  scepter,  all  the  senate  and  the  whole  Roman  army  hither, 
and  that  at  Rome  he  left  only  vile  creatures  such  as  fishermen,  pastrycooks, 
bird-catchers,  bastards,  plebeians  and  slaves,"     Cf.  Fortescue,  op.  cit.,  p.  94. 


326  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

foisted  into  the  See  of  Constantinople  as  its  Patriarch. 

Neither  Photius  nor  Cerularius,  it  must  here  be  observed, 
instigated  schism  because  of  controverted  questions  of 
dogma.  Photius  caused  it  by  his  shameless  usurpation  of 
the  See  of  the  lawful  Patriarch  of  Constantinople.  Ceru- 
larius, in  his  opposition  to  Rome,  was  actuated  by  similar 
motives.  But  he  was  not,  like  his  schismatic  predecessor, 
satisfied  to  be  Primate  of  the  Byzantine  Church.  His  pride 
and  ambition  led  him  to  aim  at  something  far  higher.  This 
was  nothing  less  than  the  founding  of  a  theocracy  of  which 
he  was  to  be  supreme  head  and  in  which  the  State  was  to 
be  subservient  to  the  Church.  This  theocracy  was  to  be  the 
antithesis  of  the  Caesaropapism  which  had  flourished  almost 
uninterruptedly  since  the  death  of  Constantine.  At  one 
time,  indeed,  Cerularius  thought  seriously  of  uniting  the 
imperial  and  the  patriarchal  functions  and  proclaiming 
himself  the  Emperor-Patriarch  of  the  Roman  Empire. .  . ." 
He  began  to  wear  purple  shoes,  one  of  the  Emperor's  pre- 
rogatives, and  to  join  royalty  and  the  priesthood  in  his 
own  person.  Michael  Prellos,  who  knew  him  well  and  who 
wrote  a  valuable  history  of  this  period,  informs  us  in  refer- 
ring to  Cerularius:  **In  his  hands  he  held  the  cross  while 
from  his  mouth  issued  imperial  laws.'* 

But  Cerularius'  ambitipn  was  the  cause  of  his  undoing. 
Like  Photius  he  was  made  Patriarch  by  the  Emperor.  Like 
Photius  he  was  deposed  from  his  exalted  position  by  impe- 
rial authority  and  sent  into  exile  on  the  charge  of  high 
treason.  But,  although  he  failed  in  his  stupendous  scheme 
to  make  himself  the  Emperor-Patriarch  of  the  East,  he 
was  successful  where  Photius  fell  short — in  definitively  sep- 
arating the  Greek  from  the  Latin  Church  and  by  perpetu- 
ating the  most  disastrous  schism  which  has  ever  befallen 
the  Church  of  Christ.  It  was  for  this  "unheard  of  offence 
and  injury  done  to  the  Holy  Apostolic  and  First  See ' '  that 
the  Papal  Legates  in  Constantinople,  who  tried  to  the  last 
to  prevent  schism,  pronounced  Cerularius  and  his  adherents 

21  Cf.  Le  Schisme  Oriental  du  XI  Siecle,  p.  275  (by  L.  Brehier,  Paris,  1899). 


THE  CHUECHES  OF  THE  EAST  327 

Anathema  Maran-atha."  Their  last  words  after  laying  the 
bull  of  excommunication  on  the  altar  of  Santa  Sophia  were 
Videat  Deus  et  judicet. 

These  words  in  which  they  called  upon  God  to  witness 
and  judge  were  uttered  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
July  16,  1054.  The  Great  Schism  which — aside  from  a 
brief  interval — ^has  ever  since  continued  unbroken  was  then 
a  fait  accompli. 

No  sooner  had  the  schism  of  Cerularius  become  an  accom- 
plished fact,  than  God-fearing  men  of  both  the  Eastern  and 
the  Western  Church  set  to  work  to  devise  ways  and  means 
of  closing  the  deplorable  breach.  The  Popes  especially 
never  lost  sight  of  their  erring  children  to  the  east  of  the 
Adriatic.  From  the  fateful  sixteenth  of  July,  1054,  until 
the  present,  they  have  made  efforts  innumerable  to  bring 
about  a  reunion  between  the  tragically  separated  churches. 
With  this  object  in  view,  two  General  Councils  were  con- 
vened, the  Second  Council  of  Lyons  in  1274  and  the  Coun- 
cil of  Florence  in  1439. 

But  since  the  outbreak  of  the  schism,  a  new  barrier  had 
been  erected  between  the  East  and  the  West,  which  seemed 
almost  insurmountable.  This  was  the  result  of  the  horrible 
sack  of  Constantinople  by  the  soldiers  of  the  Fourth  Cru- 
sade. The  cruelties,  massacres,  and  wholesale  destruction 
of  the  choicest  works  of  art  which  attended  this  unpardon- 
able outrage  made  it  one  of  the  most  shocking  events  in  the 
history  of  the  capital.^^  Then,  too,  there  was  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Latin  Empire  in  Constantinople  and  the  erec- 

22  Now  that  the  crash  had  come  "one  asks  oneself  what  else  the  Legates 
could  have  done.  They  had  waited  long  enough,  and,  if  ever  a  man  clearly 
showed  that  he  wanted  schism,  it  was  Cerularius.  He  had  already  excom- 
municated the  Pope  by  taking  his  name  off  the  diptychs.  We  should  note  that 
this  is  the  only  sentence  that  the  Roman  Church  pronounced  against  the 
Eastern  Communion.  She  has  never  excommunicated  it  as  such  nor  the  other 
patriarchs.  If  they  lost  her  communion  it  was  because  they  too,  following 
Cerularius'  example,  struck  the  Pope's  name  from  their  diptychs."  Fortescue, 
op.  cit.,  p.  185. 

28  Although  Innocent  III,  preacher  of  the  Crusade,  promptly  excommuni- 
cated the  Crusaders  for  their  perfidy  and  treachery,  the  Greeks,  nevertheless, 
persisted  in  declaring  that  His  Holiness  was  the  real  cause  of  their  mis- 
fortunes. 


328  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

tion  of  Frankish  States  in  Syria  and  Palestine.  This  ruth- 
less ignoring  by  the  Latins  of  the  sovereign  rights  of  a 
Christian  power  and  all  the  wanton  cruelty  that  accompa- 
nied it  was  still  fresh  in  the  minds  of  the  Greek  delegates 
when  they  convened  at  Lyons  and  Florence  and  this,  added 
to  all  the  causes  of  friction  that  had  so  long  rankled  in  the 
hearts  of  the  Byzantines,  made  a  successful  issue  of  the 
deliberations  of  the  assembled  fathers  almost  hopeless. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  all  the  causes  of  rancor  that 
existed,  a  reunion  was  effected  by  each  of  the  Councils  but 
in  each  case  it  lasted  only  a  very  short  time.  For  no  sooner 
did  the  people  of  Constantinople  hear  of  the  action  of  the 
Council  of  Lyons  than,  exercising  what  should  now  be  called 
the  right  of  referendum,  they  rose  in  insurrection  against 
it.  As  a  result,  however,  of  the  reunion  brought  about  by 
the  Council  of  Florence,  the  Byzantine  Church  remained,  at 
least  nominally,  in  communion  with  the  Holy  See  for  a 
period  of  thirty-three  years — from  1439  to  1472.  It  was 
during  this  fateful  time  that  Constantinople  was  taken  by 
the  Turks  under  Mohammed  II. 

The  Conquest  of  Constantinople  was  almost  as  great  a 
turning  point  in  the  history  of  the  Byzantine  Church  as 
was  the  Great  Schism  of  Photius  and  Cerularius.  For  the 
Sultan  had  scarcely  taken  possession  of  the  city  when  he 
sent  for  the  leader  of  the  anti-Papal  party,  one  George 
Scholarios,  and,  with  a  view  of  winning  him  together  with 
the  schismatic  Byzantines  over  to  his  rule  as  against  that 
of  the  Catholic  Powers  of  the  West,  he  had  him  made  Patri- 
arch, although  at  the  time  of  his  appointment  Scholarios 
seems  to  have  been  a  layman. 

No  sooner  had  the  Sultan  championed  the  cause  of  the 
Greeks  against  Rome  than  they  at  once  exultingly  rallied 
around  their  Patriarch  and,  in  words  of  deepest  hatred  and 
wildest  fanaticism,  shouted:  "Rather  the  Sultanas  turban 
than  the  Pope's  tiara."  They  have  had  their  choice  but 
with  what  long  centuries  of  degradation  and  ignominy! 

Neither  the  Patriarch  nor  his  followers  had  to  wait  long 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  329 

before  the  scales  fell  from  their  eyes.  For  no  sooner  had 
Scholarios,  under  the  direction  of  the  Sultan,  been  ap- 
pointed to  the  See  of  Constantinople  than  Mohammed  sent 
for  him  and  handed  him  the  herat-diiplomsL  ^* — ^which  defined 
what  were  his  duties  and  prerogatives  as  Patriarch  under 
the  Moslem  Government.  But  this  was  not  all.  For 
scarcely  had  he  been  invested  with  the  signs  of  his  spiritual 
jurisdiction  than  the  unfortunate  Patriarch  was  given  to 
understand  that  he  was  nothing  more  than  a  puppet  in 
the  hands  of  his  Moslem  master  who  could  depose  him  at 
will.  Each  of  his  successors  since  that  time  in  the  See  of 
Constantinople  has  been  obliged  to  submit  to  the  same 
humiliating  ceremony  of  investiture. 

To  their  intense  chagrin  the  Patriarchs  soon  learned 
furthermore  that  their  appointment  had  to  be  followed  by 
a  gift  to  the  Sultan  of  a  large  sum  of  money;  that  their 
tenure  of  office  would  rarely  exceed  two  years ;  ^°  that  they 
could  be  deposed  to  make  room  for  others  who  were  forced 
to  pay  similar  exorbitant  sums  for  their  appointment ;  that 
they  might  be  deposed  and  reappointed  no  fewer  than  five 
times  and  at  each  appointment  to  the  office  from  which  they 
had  been  deposed,  they  would  be  obliged  to  renew  the  enor- 
mous bribe  to  their  arbitrary  and  rapacious  overlord. 

The  result  was  simony  of  the  worst  kind,  for,  in  order  to 
obtain  the  money  required  by  the  Moslem  tyrant  for  their 
appointment,  the  subservient  Patriarchs  resorted  to  the 
selling  of  benefices  to  priests  and  bishops  and  metropoli- 
tans. To  such  an  extent  had  this  sacrilegious  traffic  in  the 
things  of  God  been  carried  on  that  simony  has  long  made 
the  Orthodox  Church  "a  reproach  and  a  scoff,  an  example 

2<  According  to  the  custom  that  subsequently  prevailed  it  was  the  Grand 
Vizier  who,  in  the  Sultan's  name,  gave  the  berat  to  the  newly  appointed 
Patriarch.  As  to  bishops-elect  it  was  obligatory  that  they  should  receive  their 
"berat  from  the  government  before  their  consecration. 

20  Thus,  during  the  seventy-five  years  between  1625  and  1700,  there  were 
no  fewer  than  50  patriarchs  whose  average  tenure  of  office  was  a  year  and 
a  half.  Compare  this  with  the  long  reign — seventy-two  years — of  Gregory 
XVI,  Pius  IX,  and  Leo  XIII  whose  average  tenure  of  office  was  twenty-four 
years — just  thirty-six  times  as  long  as  that  of  the  unfortunate  Patriarchs  in 
question. 


330  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

and  an  astonishment  among  the  nations  that  are  round 
about  her." 

But  the  troubles  and  humiliations  of  the  CEcumenical 
Patriarch — as  the  Primate  of  the  Byzantine  Church  is 
called — did  not  end  with  his  degrading  investiture  by  the 
Sultan,  or,  as  was  more  frequently  the  case,  by  his  Grand 
Vizier  and  by  the  payment  of  an  enormous  bribe  for  his  ap- 
pointment. Owing  to  his  subjugation  to  the  Sublime  Porte, 
he  soon  found  himself  confronted  with  untold  difficulties 
based  on  racial  jealousies  and  antagonisms.  These  were 
augmented  by  the  subserviency  of  the  Phanar — the  Vatican 
of  the  Orthodox  Church — and  the  readiness  which  Phanar- 
iote  Greeks  always  exhibited  to  become  the  agents  of  Turk- 
ish oppression  of  their  fellow  Christians — especially  those 
in  the  Balkans.  It  was  because  the  policy  of  the  Phanar 
was  identical  with  that  of  the  Porte  that  the  enemies  of 
the  Sultan  were  unwilling  to  acknowledge  any  kind  of  de- 
pendence on  the  Byzantine  Patriarch.  This  was  strikingly 
evinced  in  the  war  of  Greek  Independence,  as  one  of  the 
first  acts  of  the  Greek  Parliament  was  to  declare  the  Church 
in  Greece  to  be  autocephalous. 

The  example  of  Greece  was  subsequently  followed  by  the 
different  states  in  the  Balkans.  For  no  sooner  had  they 
freed  themselves  from  Turkish  rule  than  they  proclaimed 
their  independence  of  the  CEcumenical  Patriarch. 

This  Philetism — ^love  of  one 's  race — in  things  ecclesiasti- 
cal, which  the  various  nations  of  southeastern  Europe  so 
conspicuously  exhibited  during  the  last  century  was  a  great 
blow  to  the  Phanar,  but  it  was  this  same  kind  of  nationalism 
that  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  Grea^  Schism.  Greece  and 
Roumania,  Serbia  and  Bulgaria,  and  Russia,  long  before 
any  of  them,  had  done  nothing  more  than  had  the  Orthodox 
Church  when  it  separated  itself  from  communion  with 
Rome.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  Phanar  announced  Philetism 
as  a  heresy.  It  was  but  the  reassertion  of  the  national  idea 
which  had  led  the  CEcumenical  Patriarch  to  rebel  against 
the  Pope — the  construing  of  it  into  the  principle  cujus  regio 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  331 

ejus  religio  which  met  with  such  favor  in  the  seventeenth 
century  in  Germany,  according  to  which  "each  politically 
independent  state  should  have  an  ecclesiastically  independ- 
ent church."  As  a  result  of  the  frequent  application  of 
this  principle  the  Orthodox  Church  has  shared  the  fate  that 
never  fails  to  overtake  schism  and  heresy.  In  consequence 
of  political  and  ecclesiastical  jealousies  and  antagonism; 
of  excommunications  and  counter-excommunications  by 
rival  bishops ;  of  divisions  and  subdivisions,  the  once  great 
and  powerful  Orthodox  Communion  now  finds  itself  divided 
into  sixteen  independent  Churches  whose  jurisdiction 
ranges  in  extent  from  that  of  the  Independent  Church  of 
the  monastery  of  Mount  Sinai  to  that  of  the  once  great 
Empire  of  Russia.  There  is  now  little  left  to  the  Patriarch 
of  Constantinople  but  the  primacy  of  honor,  for  he  has  no 
jurisdiction  outside  of  his  rapidly  diminishing  Patriarch- 
ate. Is  there  in  all  history  a  more  striking  case  of  poetic 
justice  than  that  afforded  by  the  gradual  disintegration  of 
the  proud  and  ambitious  Patriarchate  of  Constantinople? 

Although  the  retribution  which  has  visited  Cerularius 
and  his  successors  is  fearful  to  contemplate,  stern  Nemesis 
still  pursues  the  (Ecumenical  Patriarchs  with  unrelenting 
severity.  For  now  these  unfortunate  hierarchs  are  trem- 
bling under  the  Damoclean  sword,  which  the  vengeful  god- 
dess has  put  into  the  hands  of  Russia. 

In  1721  Peter  the  Great  placed  the  Church  of  Russia 
under  the  Holy  Directing  Synod,  where  it  has  since  re- 
mained. As  this  Synod  was  never  more  than  the  shadow 
of  the  Czar,  the  Church  of  Holy  Russia  was  for  two  centu- 
ries the  most  Erastian  Christian  organization  that  has  ever 
existed.  For  during  all  this  time  the  Holy  Synod  was  as 
much  under  the  domination  of  the  Czar  as  any  department 
of  the  imperial  government.  Added  to  this  is  the  porten- 
tous fact  that  the  Russian  Church  counts  eight  times  as 
many  communicants  as  all  the  other  Orthodox  Churches 
together.  Even  in  the  famous  monastic  republic  of  Mount 
AthoB — a  supposedly  Greek  community — ^where  in  1902 


332  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

there  were  seven  thousand  and  five  hundred  monks,  the 
majority  were  Slavs  and  nearly  one-half  were  Russians. 

All  this  being  the  case,  the  Russians,  who  are  fully  as 
ambitious  as  were  the  Greeks  in  the  time  of  Photius  and 
Cerularius,  are  beginning  to  ask  themselves  whether  the 
time  has  not  arrived  for  the  Holy  Synod  to  assume  the 
supreme  headship  of  the  entire  Orthodox  Church.    Nor  is 
the  Phanar  ignorant  of  the  aspirations  and  purposes  of  the 
Holy  Synod.    It  has  read  the  writing  on  the  wall  and  knows 
that  as  soon  as  the  Russian  Church  shall  find  a  leader  with 
the    towering    ambition    and    intense    national    spirit    of 
Photius,  the  fondly-entertained  project  of  the  Holy  Synod 
will  be  quickly  realized,  that  the  primacy  of  the  Orthodox 
Church  will  be  transferred  to  Moscow  or  Petrograd,  and 
that  the  power  and  the  prestige  of  the  (Ecumenical  Patri- 
arch will  then  be  little  more  than  were  those  of  his  first 
predecessor  when  he  was  the  humble   suffragan  of  the 
Metropolitan  of  Heraclea.     The  Great  Church — the  official 
designation  of  the  Patriarchate   of  Constantinople — ^will 
then  have  shared  the  fate  of  the  Churches  of  Antioch  and 
Alexandria  which,  in  the  days  of  their  glory,  were  the  rivals 
of  the  Mother  Church  of  Imperial  Rome.    And  then,  too, 
will  the  aspiring  Greeks  be  rudely  wakened  from  the  fan- 
tastic dream  of  their  ** Great  Idea" — the  idea  of  a  great  and 
reconstructed  Hellas  that  shall  embrace  the  Balkans  and 
have  as  its  capital  the  Queen  City  of  the  Bosphorus. 

There  are  few  things  in  the  history  of  the  Church,  which 
the  lover  of  Christian  Unity  and  peace  finds  more  sadden- 
ing than  the  clandestine  intrigues  and  open  antagonism 
that  led  to  the  Great  Schism ;  few  things  that  are  more  dis- 
creditable than  the  incessant  machinations  of  those  poli- 
ticians and  ecclesiastics  who  were  the  cause  of  all  those 
fatal  dissensions  which  were  so  characteristic  of  the  Ortho- 
dox Church  during  the  nineteenth  century  and  have  led  to 
that  widespread  disintegration  which,  there  is  reason  to 
fear,  is  just  beginning.  While  one  can  have  no  sympathy 
with  the  authors  of  these  disastrous  schisms  in  the  just  ret- 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  333 

ribution  which  has  been  meted  out  to  them,  one  cannot  help 
pitying  the  countless  thousands  among  the  clergy  and  laity 
who,  in  spite  of  the  unpardonable  scandals  caused  by 
'  Church  and  State  are,  nevertheless,  earnestly  striving  to 
further  the  cause  of  Christ  and  to  reflect  in  their  lives  the 
teaching  of  the  gospel  of  their  Redeemer.  In  Russia,  in 
Greece,  in  Asia  Minor — ^wherever  the  Orthodox  Church  still 
retains  a  hold  on  her  children — one  cannot  help  being  edi- 
fied by  the  piety,  the  zeal,  the  deep  religious  spirit  of  innu- 
merable thousands  who  are  not  only  ignorant  of  the  cause 
of  the  schism  that  separates  them  from  the  Church  of  Rome 
but  are  also  ignorant  that  they  have  even  been  in  schism. 
Of  those,  however,  who  are  acquainted  with  the  origin  of 
the  Great  Schism  there  are  many  who  ardently  hope  and 
pray  that  it  may  soon  be  healed.  For  they  have  learned  by 
long  and  sad  experience  the  truth  of  the  words  of  St.  John 
Chrysostom  who — ^with  the  possible  exception  of  St.  Greg- 
ory Nazienzen — ^was  the  most  illustrious  prelate  who  ever 
ruled  the  See  of  Constantinople:  "Nothing  can  hurt  the 
Church  so  much  as  love  of  power.  * '  ^' 

Reunion  of  the  Eastern  Churches  with  the  Holy  See 

During  my  wanderings  in  the  Near  East,  as  during  previ- 
ous travels  in  Greece  and  Russia,  a  question  of  ever-absorb- 
ing interest  to  me  was  that  of  the  long-desired  and  often- 
attempted  reunion  of  the  Eastern  Churches  with  the  Church 
of  Rome.  When  I  contemplated  the  majestic  temples  of 
Petrograd  with  their  surging  multitudes  of  pious  worship- 
ers and  examined  the  stately  convents  and  monasteries  of 
Moscow  with  their  vast  number  of  devoted,  God-fearing  in- 
mates; when  I  marveled  at  the  shiploads  of  Russian  pil- 
grims who  at  great  expense  and  with  great  discomfort 
annually  visited  the  Holy  Land  and  noted  the  sumptuous 
hospices  and  shrines  that  their  government  has  there 
erected  for  them ;  when  I  beheld  the  desecrated  temples  of 
Hellas  and  Anatolia  and  recalled  how  the  Greeks,  during 

26  Horn.  II  in  Epheaioa. 


334  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

long  centuries  of  oppression  and  degradation — ^when  they 
had  everything  to  gain  by  apostasy — preserved  intact  the 
faith  of  the  Orthodox  Church  and  augmented  that  vast  army 
of  martyrs  who  sealed  their  belief  in  Christ  with  their 
blood — ^when  I  saw  and  recollected  all  this,  there  was  the 
ever-recurrent  question,  "Will  the  fateful  schism  of  a  thou- 
sand years  ever  be  healed  ? ' ' 

As  we  have  already  seen,  the  last  reconciliation  of  the 
Orthodox  Church  with  the  Holy  See  took  place  at  the  Coun- 
cil of  Florence  in  1439.  On  this  occasion,  also,  the  Coptic, 
Abyssinian,  Jacobite,  Maronite,  and  Armenian  Churches 
were  wholly  or  partially  united  with  the  great  Mother 
Church,  from  which  they  had  so  long  been  separated.  It 
was  then  that  the  Uniate  Churches  already  referred  to  had 
their  origin.  But  as  the  reunion  of  the  Orthodox  Church 
had  been  based  on  political  rather  than  ecclesiastical 
grounds  it  was  of  short  duration,  for  it  was  formally  re- 
pudiated by  the  Byzantines  in  1472,  nineteen  years  after 
the  occupation  of  Constantinople  by  the  Ottoman  army 
under  Mohammed  the  Conqueror. 

But,  although  the  reunions  effected  at  the  Councils  of 
Lyons  and  Florence  were  so  short-lived,  the  hope  of  an 
eventual  and  enduring  reunion  has  always  been  cherished 
not  only  by  the  Latins  but  by  an  influential  body  of  the 
Orthodox  Church  as  well.  It  will  suflSce  here  to  refer  to  two 
recent  efforts  to  secure  reunion — one  of  which  was  made  by 
the  (Ecumenical  Patriarch,  Joachim  III,  a  little  less  than 
two  decades  ago,  and  one  made  by  Pope  Leo  XIII  a  few 
years  earlier. 

In  a  noted  encyclical  addressed  to  the  divers  Orthodox 
Churches,  the  (Ecumenical  Patriarch  requested  them  to  con- 
sider the  question  of  reunion  of  Christendom.  His  cour- 
teous and  charitable  references  in  this  letter  to  the  Latin 
Church  and  his  expressed  hope  that  it  and  the  Orthodox 
may  again  be  reunited  evince  a  man  of  a  deeply  religious 
spirit,  whose  sole  object  was  the  cause  of  Christ,  which,  as 
he  conceived  it,  would  be  immensely  advanced  by  the  resto- 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  335 

ration  of  Church  unity.  But  the  replies  which  he  received 
from  the  sister  Church — those  in  communion  with  the 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople — soon  convinced  him  that  his 
efforts  in  the  direction  of  the  proposed  reunion  were  doomed 
to  failure. 

In  his  famous  encyclical  Prcedara — aptly  called  the  * '  Tes- 
tament of  Leo  XII" — ^which  was  addressed  on  June  20, 
1894,  to  ** Princes  and  Peoples,"  His  Holiness  speaks  to  his 
wayward  and  error-bound  children  in  words  of  surpassing 
tenderness  and  deepest  paternal  solicitude.  There  is  not 
a  word  of  reproach,  not  a  single  expression  to  wound  even 
the  most  sensitive.^^  He  refers  lovingly  to  the  East, 
** whence  salvation  spread  over  the  whole  world";  to  the 
resplendent  history  of  their  venerable  sees ;  to  the  Greeks 
who  had  occupied  the  Chair  of  Peter  and  had  edified  the 
Church  by  their  learning  and  virtue.  In  his  plea  for  re- 
union he  declares:  *'No  great  gulf  separates  us;  except 
for  a  few  smaller  points  we  agree  so  entirely  with  you  that 
it  is  from  your  teaching,  your  customs  and  rites  that  we 
often  take  proofs  for  Catholic  dogma." ^*  And  referring 
to  certain  unfounded  charges  that  had  often  been  made 
against  the  Holy  See,  he  declares  in  the  most  positive  terms 
that  no  Pope  has  the  slightest  desire  to  diminish  the  dignity 
and  rights  of  any  of  the  great  Patriarchates  of  the  East. 
And  as  for  their  venerable  customs  *'we  shall,"  he  assures 
them,  ' '  provide  in  a  broad  and  generous  spirit. ' ' 

Had  the  occupant  of  the  Patriarchal  See  of  Constanti- 
nople been  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  his  illustrious  country- 
man, Cardinal  Bessarion,  who  labored  so  strenuously  for 
Church  reunion  at  the  Council  of  Florence,  and  had  he  been 
actuated  by  a  tithe  of  the  zeal  and  charity  and  love  of  peace 
that  so  distinguished  the  great  St.  Athanasius  of  Alexan- 

27  "The  Holy  Father,"  as  Mgr.  Duchesne  beautifully  declares,  "has  put  all 
his  heart  into  it;  I  might  almost  say,  he  had  put  only  his  heart  into  it.'' 
Op.  oit.,  p.  41. 

28  "Eo  vel  magis  quod  non  ingenti  discrimine  seiunguntur :  imo,  si  pauca 
ezcipias,  sic  cetera  consentimus,  ut  in  ipsis  catholici  nominis  vindiciis  non 
raro  ex  doctrina,  ex  more,  ex  ritibus,  quibus  orientales  utuntur,  testimonia 
atque  argumenta  promauus." 


336  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

dria,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  Sovereign  Pontiff's 
gentle  and  noble  letter  would  have  met  a  very  different 
reception  and  that  measures  would  have  been  taken  ere  this 
to  terminate  a  schism  which  during  ten  long  centuries  has 
been  so  prolific  of  evil  to  untold  millions  of  souls  redeemed 
at  an  infinite  price. 

But,  unfortunately  for  the  Eastern  Churches,  as  well  as 
for  the  Church  of  Rome,  Anthimos  VII  was  then  (Ecumenical 
Patriarch.  His  offensive  and  abusive  reply  to  the  gracious 
and  generous  appeal  of  the  renowned  successor  of  the 
Fisherman  shows  that  in  character  and  zeal  for  souls  and 
ardent  love  of  the  Church  of  Christ  he  was  the  very  oppo- 
site of  the  great  Pontiff  whose  overtures  he  so  disdainfully 
and  so  ignominiously  rejected. 

Although  the  efforts  to  restore  union  which  were  made 
by  Joachim  III  and  Leo  XIII  were,  apparently,  completely 
ineffectual,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  set  people — both 
clergy  and  laity — to  thinking,  and  that  Church  unity  is  now 
nearer  realization  than  it  has  been  for  centuries.  Thanks 
to  more  frequent  communication  between  the  East  and  the 
West,  as  well  as  to  the  all-powerful  agency  of  the  press, 
the  people  of  the  Eastern  Churches  are  beginning  to  realize 
as  never  before  the  extent  and  magnitude  of  the  frightful 
evils  that  have  been  engendered  by  the  Erastianism  and  the 
Philetism  which  so  dominate  the  Churches  of  Russia  and 
the  Balkans.  They  have  learned  that  most  of  the  hatred, 
dissensions,  and  race  antagonisms  which  have  so  grieved 
and  afflicted  them  may  be  traced  to  their  lack  of  a  central 
ecclesiastical  authority  and  to  the  fact  that  their  clergy 
have  been  forced  to  become  mere  tools  of  the  government. 
Comparing  their  condition  before  the  Great  Schism  with 
what  it  is  now,  they  find  to  their  sorrow  that  they  are  suffer- 
ing from  arrested  development;  that  their  boasted  con- 
servatism is  but  an  euphemism  for  f ossilization ;  that  they 
have  long  ceased  to  be  a  living,  active  force,  and  that  their 
only  hope  of  regaining  their  erstwhile  power  and  prestige 
is  to  become  reunited  with  the  Apostolic  See. 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  337 

Those  who  were  familiar  with  the  history  of  the  past  will 
recall  the  days  when  the  eminent  saints  and  scholars  Athana- 
sius,  Clement,  and  Cyril  of  Alexandria  reflected  such  honor 
on  the  Church  in  Egypt ;  when  St.  John  Damascene  and  St. 
Ephrem  were  the  glory  of  Syria  and  Mesopotamia;  when 
St.  Basil,  St.  John  Chrysostom,  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa, 
and  St.  Gregory  Nazianzen  were  the  great  intellectual 
luminaries  of  Asia  Minor  and  the  revered  doctors  of  the 
entire  Church  of  Christ.  And  pondering  these  facts  it  may 
occur  to  them  that  had  Photius  been  less  ambitious  and 
more  religious  he  might  now  be  numbered  not  among  sowers 
of  scandal  and  schism — 

Seminator  di  scandalo  e  di  scisma  *' 

but  among  the  great  Fathers  who  were  ever-zealous  pro- 
moters of  the  good  name  and  the  sacred  union  of  the  Church 
Universal. 

They  will  also  recall  the  disillusioning  and  disconcerting 
fact  that  since  the  very  beginning  of  schism,  the  Eastern 
Church,  to  quote  the  words  of  Dean  Stanley,  "has  produced 
hardly  any  permanent  works  of  practical  Christian  benevo- 
lence. With  very  few  exceptions,  its  celebrated  names  are 
invested  with  no  stirring  associations.  It  seems  to  open 
a  field  of  interest  to  travelers  and  antiquarians,  not  to 
philosophers  or  historians.  ...  As  a  rule  there  has  arisen 
in  the  East  no  society  like  the  Benedictines,  held  in  honor 
wherever  literature  or  civilization  has  spread;  no  chari- 
table orders  like  the  Sisters  of  Mercy,  which  carry  light 
and  peace  into  the  darkest  haunts  of  suffering  humanity. ' ' '° 

29  Inferno  XXVIII,  35, 

^0  Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Church,  pp.  2,  30  (London,  1861). 

The  testimony  of  Professor  H.  Gelzer,  likewise  a  Protestant,  is  almost  the 
same  as  that  of  Dean  Stanley.  Writing  of  the  monastic  establishments  of 
the  Orthodox  Church  he  pertinently  inquires:  "While  the  Catholic  Orders 
as  teaching  and  nursing  bodies  have  become  an  important  element  in  the 
civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century,  what  have  Athos,  Sinai,  Patmos  or 
Megaspilion  been  doing?  The  Greeks  often  bitterly  complain  of  the  mighty 
progress  of  Catholic  propaganda,  but  they  must  themselves  admit  that  the  best 
schools  and  hospitals  in  Turkey  belong  to  the  Catholic  Orders."  Von  Eeiligen 
Berge  und  aus  Makendonien,  p.  2  (Leipsig,  1904). 


338  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

So  far  as  intellectual  life  is  concerned  they  will  find  that 
the  above  words  apply  with  equal  truth  even  to  the  great 
monastic  republic  of  Mount  Athos,  which,  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  was  so  noted  a  center  of  Greek  learning.  For,  sad 
to  relate,  one  finds  even  there  the  same  intellectual  apathy 
and  decay  as  elsewhere,  and  its  seven  and  more  thousand 
monks  are  to-day  as  dead  set  against  scholarship  as  when 
they  indignantly  razed  the  school  which  Eugenius  Bulgaris, 
the  greatest  Greek  scholar  of  the  eighteenth  century,  had 
there  established  in  their  own  behoof. 

It  is  the  recollection  of  all  these  things — ''the  remember- 
ing in  misery  the  happy  time" — combined  with  the  kind 
and  generous  invitation  of  Leo  XIII  to  return  to  the  Church 
of  their  fathers,  that  has  swelled  the  ranks  of  that  long- 
existent  party  in  the  Orthodox  Church  known  as  the 
AaT£iv6<j)opovT£c — Latin-favorers — ^who  have  always  deplored 
schism  and  who  would  use  all  their  influence  to  bring 
it  to  an  early  termination.  This  party,  which  has  long 
groaned  under  the  Erastianism  of  the  Czar  and  the  absolu- 
tism of  the  Sublime  Porte,  is  only  biding  its  time  to  seize 
an  opportunity  to  return  to  its  allegiance  to  the  Pope. 
Professor  Harnack,  whose  competency  to  express  an 
opinion  in  this  matter  no  one  will  question,  declared  in  a 
notable  pronouncement  on  the  encyclical  Praecala  of  Leo 
XIII  that: 

People  who  understand  Russia  know  that  there  is  a 
patriotic  Russian  party — or  rather  tendency — in  the  heart 
of  the  country,  in  Moscow  and  among  the  most  educated 
people,  that  hopes  for  a  movement  of  their  Church  in  the 
direction  of  the  Western  Church — that  is  of  the  Roman,  not 
the  Evangelical  Communion — ^who  work  for  this  and  who 
see  in  it  the  only  hope  of  Russia.  This  party  manifests  its 
ideas  in  writing,  so  far  as  circumstances  in  Russia  allow, 
and  has  already  shown  that  it  possesses  men  of  unusual 
talent,  warm  love  of  their  country  and  undoubted  devotion 
to  the  Greek  Church.  They  have  also  considered  how  they 
shall  reconcile  Russia's  traditions  and  world-power  with  a 


THE  CHURCHES  OF  THE  EAST  339 

change  in  her  Church  affairs  that  shall  harmonize  with  the 
views  of  Rome  and  they  believe  in  its  possibility." 

If  the  Latin-favorers  could  now  find  a  leader  of  command- 
ing personality  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the 
reunion  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  Churches  would  not 
be  far  distant.  Had  Russia  a  pious  and  forceful  monarch 
like  her  saintly  Apostle,  King  Vladimir,  or  had  Constanti- 
nople a  Patriarch  of  the  zeal  and  influence  of  St.  Theodore 
of  Studium,  the  great  majority  of  the  Orthodox  Church, 
who  know  nothing  about  the  origin  of  the  existing  schism, 
would  follow  such  a  leader  without  hesitation.  And  so 
slight  would  be  the  change  in  faith,  in  consequence  of  re- 
union, that  the  great  mass  of  the  faithful  would  scarcely 
be  conscious  of  it.  Their  faith  would  remain  exactly  the 
same  as  it  was  before  the  schism. 

And  this  holds  true  not  only  of  the  Orthodox  Church 
but  of  all  the  other  schismatic  churches  as  well.  They 
would,  all  of  them,  retain  their  peculiar  rites  and  customs ; 
they  would  hear  the  same  language  in  the  liturgy  that  has 
been  consecrated  by  long  centuries  of  use.  The  Copts  would 
retain  the  presanctified  liturgy  of  St.  Mark  and  continue 
to  use  the  venerable  Alexandrine  rite  in  the  Coptic  lan- 
guage. The  Jacobites  would  celebrate  the  sacred  mysteries 
in  Syriac  according  to  the  age-old  ritual  of  St.  James.  The 
adherents  of  the  Orthodox  Church  would  still  hear  their 
strange  chant  echoing  **  backwards  and  forwards  through 
the  gleaming  inconostasis,  while  the  deacon  waves  his 
ripidion  over  the  holy  gifts  and  the  clouds  of  incense  are 
borne  through  the  royal  doors.  Still  the  people  would 
crowd  up  for  the  antidoron  and  the  kolybas,  dive  for  the 
cross  at  the  holy  lights,  kiss  each  other  on  Easter  Day  and 
dance  for  the  Forerunner's  birth,  while  the  psalms  from 
the  Holy  Mountain  would  still  sound  across  the  ^Egean 
Sea."" 

81  Daa  Testament  Leoa  XIII,  in  Reden  und  Aufaatze,  Vol.  II,  p.  279  (Gteis^en, 
1904). 

»!«  FortcBcue,  op.  oit.,  p.  432,  433. 


340  FEOM  BEELIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

It  is  because  the  venerable  eastern  rituals  and  liturgies, 
in  their  several  ancient  languages,  represent  some  of  the 
most  sacred  traditions  of  the  Church  that  Pope  Leo  XIII 
in  his  noted  encyclical  Orientalium  Dignitas  Ecclesiarum 
praises  them  so  highly  and  applies  to  the  bride  of  Christ 
the  words  of  the  Psalmist:  **The  queen" — the  Church — 
"stood  on  Thy  right  hand  in  gilded  clothing;  surrounded 
with  variety. ' '  ^" 

As  I  observed,  during  my  travels  in  the  Near  East,  the 
frightful  ravages  that  schism  has  everywhere  caused,  and 
noted  the  growing  tendency  of  many  to  return  to  **the  unity 
of  faith  and  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,"  "  I  repeated 
with  ever  renewed  fervor  the  supplication  in  St.  Basil's 
liturgy:  Ilavoov  xa  ayla^iara  tojv  cKKXyjoiuv — "Grant  that 
Church  schisms  may  cease."  And  never  did  I  in  fancy 
more  frequently  hear  reechoed  the  touching  words  of  Our 
Saviour  before  his  passion:  "I  pray  .  .  .  that  they  all 
may  be  one,  as  Thou,  Father,  in  Me,  and  I  in  Thee;  that 
they  also  may  be  one  in  Us."  *° 

85  Psalms,  xliv :  10,  "Neque  aliud  fortasse  mirabilius  est,"  declares  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff,  "ad  catholicitatis  notam  in  Ecclesia  Dei  illustrandam,  quam 
singulare  quod  ei  praebent  obsequium  dispares  cseremoniarum  formae  nobilesque 
vestustatis  linguae,  ex  ipsa  Apostolorum  et  Patrum  consuetudine  nobiliares; 
fere  ad  imitationem  obsequii  lectissimi  quod  Christi  divino  Ecclesiae  auctori, 
exhibitum  est  nascenti,  quum  Magi  ex  varii  Orientis  plagis  devecti  venerunt 
.    .    .  adorare  eum." 

«4  St.  Paul  to  the  Ephesians,  iv:  13. 

86  St.  John's  Gospel,  xvii:  20,  21. 


CHAPTEB  XIV 

NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS 

Here  thou  behold'st 
Assyria,  and  her  empire's  ancient  bounds, 
Araxes  and  the  Caspian  Lake;  thence  on 
As  far  as  Indus  east,  Euphrates  west, 
And  oft  beyond;  to  south  the  Persian  bay 
And,  inaccessible,  the  Arabian  drouth; 
Here,  Nineveh,  of  length  within  her  wall 
Several  days'  journey,  built  by  Ninus  old, 
Of  that  first  golden  monarchy  the  seat, 
And  seat  of  Salmanassar,  whose  success 
Israel  in  long  captivity  still  mourns. 

Milton  "Paradise  Regained." 

Wrapt  in  the  crispy  air  of  a  bright  October  morning,  we 
found  ourselves  on  the  shaky  and  crowded  pontoon  bridge 
that  connects  Mosul  with  the  long-buried  city  of  Nineveh. 
Horses  and  camels  jostled  heaving,  shouting,  unwashed 
Turks  and  Kurds  and  Arabs,  who  seemed  to  be  constantly 
in  imminent  danger  of  being  shoved  into  the  swift-flowing 
Tigris.  The  variety  of  garb  and  multiplicity  of  tongues  of 
the  motley  and  vociferous  throng  on  the  swaying  and  creak- 
ing bridge  strikingly  recalled  the  clamorous  and  vari- 
colored multitude  that  always  crams  the  outer  bridge 
between  Galata  and  Stamboul. 

How  often,  during  our  delightful  sojourn  in  Mosul,  had 
we  gazed  on  the  mysterious  mounds  on  the  eastern  bank  of 
the  Tigris  which  were  insistently  beckoning  us  to  visit  them ! 
And  how  eager  were  we  to  respond  to  the  silent  invitation 
and  to  explore  the  site  of  the  once  proud  capital  of  Assyria  I 
But  we  resisted  the  persistent  temptation  to  interrupt  our 
work  in  Mosul.  We  had  there,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
scholarly  sons  of  St.  Dominic,  a  rare  opportunity  of  getting 
first-hand  information  regarding  the  social  and  economical 
condition  of  the  people  of  this  part  of  Asia  and  of  com- 

341 


342  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

pleting  our  investigations,  begun  almost  at  tlie  inception 
of  our  journey,  respecting  the  various  schismatic  churches 
of  the  East.  Not,  then,  until  we  had  completed  our  obser- 
vations in  Mosul  and  coordinated  our  impressions,  could 
we  be  induced  to  suspend  our  self-imposed  task.  We  wished 
to  have  it  completely  off  our  hands  in  order  that,  once  on 
the  historic  soil  of  Nineveh,  we  might  indulge  in  reverie 
without  let  or  hindrance. 

When,  finally,  we  were  ready  to  visit  the  ruins  of  Nineveh, 
ours  was  the  good  fortune  to  have  with  us  a  learned  Domini- 
can of  Mosul,  who  was  as  familiar  with  the  early  history 
of  the  famous  old  Assyrian  metropolis  as  he  was  with  the 
excavations  which  during  the  last  two  generations  have 
revealed  artistic  and  literary  treasures  that  have  been  the 
marvel  and  the  delight  of  the  world.  We  could  not  have 
had  a  more  intelligent  or  a  more  enthusiastic  guide  among 
the  devious  ways  which  led  to  the  sites  of  ancient  temples 
and  palaces,  whose  existence  was  absolutely  unknown  until 
uncovered  by  the  pick  and  spade  of  the  archaeologist  but  a 
few  decades  ago. 

How  strange  it  seemed  to  me,  as  we  threaded  our  way 
through  the  maze  of  passages  that  led  to  the  locations  of 
once  famous  palaces  and  temples,  that  it  was  also  a  Domini- 
can— a  brother  in  religion  of  our  guide — ^who  first  awakened 
my  interest  in  Nineveh !  That  was  more  than  three  score 
years  ago.  And  yet,  so  vivid  was  the  impression  then  made 
on  my  youthful  mind  that  it  seems  but  yesterday  when 
I  first  came  under  the  spell  of  the  famed  lands  of  Assyria 
and  Babylonia. 

It  came  about  in  a  very  simple  way.  The  Dominican  in 
question — a  dear,  venerable  man — ^had  visited  the  Holy 
Land  shortly  before  I  met  him,  and  took  great  pleasure  in 
telling  me  his  experiences  in  the  East.  Seeing  that  I  was 
greatly  interested  in  his  narrative  he  gave  me  a  large  his- 
tory of  the  Bible.  It  was  not  such  a  book,  I  have  often  since 
thought,  as  the  average  boy  would  have  cared  to  read.  But 
the  good  priest  could  not  have  selected  a  work  that  would 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  343 

have  given  me  more  pleasure — certainly  not  one  that  would 
have  benefited  me  more  deeply  or  influenced  more  pro- 
foundly all  my  subsequent  reading  and  study.  It  was,  too, 
I  must  add,  the  first  book  I  ever  had  in  my  hands  outside 
of  my  elementary  school  readers.  But  how  I  prized  that 
book !  And  how  I  read  it  again  and  again,  and  always  with 
ever-increasing  interest  and  delight!  I  do  not  know  how 
often  I  read  it  carefully  from  cover  to  cover,  but  I  do  know 
that  there  is  only  one  other  volume  that  I  have  read  more 
frequently,  and  that,  after  the  Bible,  is  my  favorite  of  all 
books — The  Divina  Commedia. 

How  often  I  have  had  reason  to  be  grateful  to  the  good 
old  Domtnican  who  unconsciously  directed  my  studies  in 
such  wise  as  to  afford  me  life-long  pleasure  and  profit !  As 
a  consequence  of  the  repeated  reading  of  the  book  which 
he  placed  in  my  hands  I  became  familiar  with  the  history 
of  the  cradle  of  our  race  long  before  I  had  entered  my 
teens,  and  I  felt  quite  well  acquainted  with  Nineveh  and 
Babylon  when  Athens  and  Rome  were  yet  to  me  but  little 
more  than  mere  names  without  significance.  And,  although 
as  I  grew  older,  I  became  interested  in  many  other  subjects, 
I  never  lost  my  early  love  of  sacred  history  or  of  the  history 
and  geography  of  the  Near  East.  For  no  matter  how 
occupied  I  might  be,  I  always  contrived  to  find  time  to  con- 
tinue the  studies  which  had  such  a  fascination  for  me  in 
my  early  boyhood. 

To  the  student  of  Assyrian  or  Babylonian  history,  noth- 
ing is  more  impressive  than  the  first  view  of  one  of  those 
stupendous  mounds  which  are  so  frequent  along  the  valleys 
of  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates  and  in  the  vast  plain  be- 
tween Bagdad  and  Abu  Sharein.  But  the  impression  is 
greatly  intensified  v/hen  the  place  visited  is  associated  with 
the  happiest  days  of  one's  youth  and  when  one  may  again 
dream  the  dreams  that  once  afforded  such  exquisite  pleas- 
ure and  such  delightful  visions  of  long-departed  glory  and 
magnificence.  This  was  my  experience  when  I  first  set  foot 
on  the  soil  that  covers  the  superb  structures  which,  in  my 


344  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

early  boyhood,  I  had  so  frequently  pictured  in  fancy  that 
it  almost  seemed  that  I  had  really  wandered  through  their 
sculpture-adorned  halls  and  had  been  an  actual  spectator 
of  the  gorgeous  processions  which  they  had  so  frequently 
witnessed  when  Nineveh  was  at  the  zenith  of  her  power 
and  greatness. 

I  had  been  deeply  impressed  when  I  first  ascended  the 
hill  on  which  stood  Homer 's  Troy,  but  my  emotion  was  not 
so  great  as  when  I  found  myself  on  the  crumbling  ruins  of 
"Nineveh,  that  great  city  in  which  there  were  more  than 
a  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  persons  that  knew  not  how 
to  distinguish  between  their  right  hand  and  their  left."  ^ 

But  this  is  easily  explained.  I  was  much  younger  when 
I  became  acquainted  with  the  enchanting  story  of  Nineveh 
than  when  I  first  conned  the  spell-weaving  pages  of  the 
Iliad.  My  earlier  impressions  were  more  vivid  and,  because 
of  the  intimate  relation  of  Assyria  to  the  Holy  Land,  as 
exhibited  in  the  Sacred  Text,  my  interest  was  correspond- 
ingly greater. 

As  I  contemplated  the  remains  of  the  great  city  which 
had  in  tender  years  been  so  frequently  the  subject  of  my 
dreams  and  in  mature  age  had  been  the  subject  of  so  much 
study  and  reflection,  I  found  a  thousand  thoughts  present- 
ing themselves  to  my  mind  regarding  the  great  capital 
which  for  so  long  a  period  played  so  important  a  role  during 
the  dawn  of  civilization. 

The  days  of  old  return; — I  breathe  the  air 
Of  the  young  world; — I  see  her  giant  sons 
Like  a  gorgeous  pageant  in  the  sky 
Of  summer's  evening,  cloud  on  fiery  cloud 
Thronging  upheaved, — before  me  rise  the  walls 
Of  the  Titanic  city — brazen  gates, — 
Imperial  Nineveh,  the  earthly  queen! 
In  all  her  golden  pomp  I  see  her  now. 

No  region  in  the  world  has  a  more  venerable  historic  past 

1  Jonah,  iv:   11.     Those  "that  knew  not  how  to  distinguish  between  their 
right  hand  and  their  left,"  is  supposed  to  refer  to  young  children. 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  345 

than  that  vast  territory  enclosed  by  the  Euphrates  and  the 
Tigris,  and  no  city  in  this  region,  with  the  possible  excep- 
tion of  Babylon,  was  for  centuries  the  center  of  greater 
power  and  influence  than  Nineveh.  According  to  the  book 
of  Genesis,^  it  was  built  by  Asur,  who  came  from  the  land  of 
Sennaar.  How  long  ago  this  was  is  a  matter  of  mere  con- 
jecture. Its  first  certain  mention  occurs  in  the  code  of 
Hammurabi,  who  ruled  over  Babylonia  in  the  twenty-third 
century  before  our  era,  but  it  was  doubtless  in  existence 
many  centuries  before  the  time  of  this  great  Babylonian 
lawgiver.  It  is,  however,  certain  that  from  the  time  of  its 
foundation,  it  gradually  increased  in  size  and  importance 
until  it  became  the  celebrated  capital  of  the  Assyrian  Em- 
pire— an  empire  which  at  one  time  embraced  the  whole  of 
the  civilized  world.  But  when  it  was  at  the  zenith  of  its 
greatness,  when  it  was  feared  and  hated  from  the  Nile  to 
the  Persian  Gulf  and  from  the  scorching  deserts  of  Arabia 
to  the  Hittite  lands  to  the  north  of  the  Taurus,  it  suddenly, 
in  707  B.  C,  collapsed  under  the  combined  attacks  of  the 
Medes  and  the  Babylonians  led  by  Cyaxares  and  Nabopo- 
lassar,  who  left  it  a  smoking  ruin,  where,  according  to  the 
victors,  **the  words  of  men,  the  tread  of  cattle  and  sheep 
and  the  sound  of  happy  music"  were  heard  no  more. 

How  execrated  was  the  name  of  Assyria  throughout  the 
length  and  the  breadth  of  western  Asia,  and  how  the  peoples 
whom  she  had  so  long  plundered  and  enslaved  rejoiced 
when  they  heard  of  the  downfall  of  her  capital  is  made  clear 
by  the  prophet  Nahum  when  he  declares : 

All  who  have  heard  of  the  fame  of  thee  [thy  destruction] 
have  clapped  their  hands  over  thee :  for  upon  whom  hath  not 
thy  wickedness  passed  continually,' 

But  the  Prophet  Zephaniah,  who  was  a  contemporary  of 

the  stupendous  event,  gives  an  even  more  graphic  account 

-  -  ■ 

2  Genesis  z:  11. 
*iii:  19. 


346  FROM  BEELIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

of  the  utter  desolation  wMcli  followed  the  overthrow  of  the 
far-famed  metropolis : 

And  the  Lord  of  hosts  .  ,  .  will  stretch  out  His  hands 
upon  the  north  and  will  destroy  Assyria  and  He  will  make 
the  beautiful  city  [Nineveh]  a  wilderness  and  as  a  place 
not  passable  and  as  a  desert. 

And  flocks  shall  lie  down  in  the  midst  thereof,  all  the 
beasts  of  the  nations ;  and  the  bittern  and  the  urchin  shall 
lodge  in  the  threshold  thereof ;  the  voice  of  the  singing  bird 
in  the  window,  the  rave:^  on  the  upper  post,  for  I  will 
consume  her  strength. 

This  is  the  glorious  city  that  dwelt  in  security ;  that  said 
in  her  heart :  I  am,  and  there  is  none  beside  me ;  how  is  she 
become  a  desert,  a  place  for  beasts  to  lie  down  in?  Every- 
one that  passeth  by  her  shall  hiss  and  wag  his  hand.* 

How  completely  these  dire  words  of  the  Hebrew  prophet 
were  verified  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  when  Xenophon 
and  his  Ten  Thousand  Greeks  two  centuries  later  passed 
by  the  mounds  which  covered  the  remains  of  Nineveh's 
one-time  magnificence,  they  were  quite  unaware  of  being 
in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  sumptuous  palaces  and 
temples  of  the  erstwhile  Queen  City  of  the  Tigris." 

Lucian,  the  Greek  Voltaire,  who  was  born  at  Samosata 
on  the  Euphrates  in  the  second  century  after  Christ,  tells 
us  in  one  of  his  satirical  dialogues  that  all  trace  of  Nineveh 
had  disappeared.  Eepresenting  Charon  as  on  a  leave  of 
absence  from  the  infernal  regions,  where  he  officiated  as 
ferryman  of  the  dead,  and  as  starting  with  Hermes,  the 
swift-footed  messenger  of  the  gods,  who  acts  as  his  guide, 
on  a  short  tour  of  this  upper  world,  he  gives  us  these  two 
characteristic  paragraphs : 

Chaeon. — Show  me  the  famous  cities  of  which  we  hear 
so  much  down  below:   The  Nineveh  of  Sardanapalus  and 

*ii:   13-15. 

^Anabasis,  Bk.  Ill,  Chap.  4.  Cf.  also  Travels  in  the  Track  of  the  Ten 
Thousand,  p.  139  et  seq.  (by  W.  F.  Ainsworth,  London,  1844). 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  347 

Babylon  and  Mycense  and  Cleonae  and  especially  Troy.  I 
remember  to  have  ferried  over  the  Styx  so  many  times  from 
this  last  place  that  I  could  not  haul  my  boat  upon  the  bank, 
or  have  it  thoroughly  dried  for  ten  whole  years. 

Hermes. — Nineveh,  0  Ferryman,  perished  long  ago  and 
there  is  no  trace  of  her  remaining;  nor  would  you  be  able 
to  tell  where  she  stood.  Babylon  is  yonder  city  with  the 
fair  towers  and  the  immense  circuit  of  wall,  but  will  soon 
have  to  be  sought  for  like  Nineveh." 

But,  although  Assyria 's  capital  was  so  thoroughly  demol- 
ished, its  name  and  fame  still  persisted.  In  the  course  of 
time  a  new  Nineveh  arose  on  the  site  of  the  ancient  metropo- 
lis and,  although  quite  unimportant  as  compared  with  its 
famous  predecessor,  it  served  at  a  later  date  to  aid  in  the 
identification  of  the  ancient  site  and  to  pave  the  way  to 
some  of  the  most  extraordinary  archaeological  discoveries 
of  the  last  century. 

The  great  Assyrian  Empire  came  to  an  end  after  endur- 
ing more  than  a  thousand  years,  and  being,  a  great  part  of 
this  period,  one  of  the  greatest  powers  of  western  Asia.  Its 
downfall,  after  its  long  centuries  of  glory  and  preeminence, 
occurred  while  Rome  was  yet  in  its  infancy  and  little  more 
than  a  rendezvous  of  robbers  and  refugees  from  justice. 
From  that  date,  707  B.  C,  nearly  twenty-five  centuries 
passed  over  the  grass  and  shrub-covered  mounds  on  the  site 
of  ancient  Nineveh  before  any  serious  effort  was  made  to 
determine  whether  they  concealed  any  remains  of  the  long- 
buried  metropolis  of  Mesopotamia. 

Until  the  middle  of  the  last  century  our  knowledge  of 
the  history  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia  was  based  entirely 
on  the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  and  on  the 
accounts  given  by  certain  Greek  and  Latin  writers.  The 
books  of  Scripture  which  are  of  special  importance  in  their 
relation  to  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  history  are  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  Nahum,  and  the  Fourth  Book  of  Kings. 

Chief  among  the  classical  writers  is  Herodotus.    He  was 

«  Charon,  23. 


348  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

not  only,  as  Cicero  calls  him,  the  ** Father  of  History,'*  but 
he  was  also  the  greatest  traveler  of  his  time.  Not  only 
did  he  traverse  a  great  part  of  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  and 
Egypt,  but  there  is  a  strong  probability  that  he  extended 
his  peregrinations  to  the  Euphrates  and  proceeded  on  its 
waters  to  Babylon.  Making  all  due  allowance  for  numerous 
inaccuracies  which  exist  in  his  picturesque  work  and  for 
not  a  few  travelers '  tales,^  the  history  of  the  brilliant  Greek 
writer  will  always  possess  value  not  only  for  its  matchless 
style  but  also  for  the  facts  which  it  contains  and  its  descrip- 
tions, which  are  evidently  from  the  pen  of  an  eye  witness. 
I  refer  especially  to  that  part  of  his  charming  work  which 
treats  of  Babylon  and  the  culture  of  its  inhabitants. 

Of  more  importance  was  the  great  history  of  Babylonia 
written  by  Berosus,  a  contemporary  of  Alexander  the 
Great  and  a  priest  of  Bel  in  Babylon.  Unfortunately  we 
have  only  the  fragments  of  this  work  which  have  been  pre- 
served by  Eusebius,  Josephus,  and  other  ancient  writers. 

But  the  works  mentioned,  as  well  as  those  of  Ctesias, 
Dinon  of  Colophon,  and  others,  threw  but  little  light  on  the 
civilization  and  achievements  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia 
during  their  long  and  eventful  history.  Detailed  informa- 
tion respecting  the  development  and  decline  of  these  two 
mighty  empires  was  to  come  only  from  native  annals  of 
which  not  even  the  existence  was  suspected  until  the  latter 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Nor  was  there  before  the  beginning  of  the  last  century 
any  certitude  regarding  the  sites  of  the  great  Assyrian  and 
Babylonian  cities  which  had  made  such  a  profound  impres- 
sion upon  the  peoples  of  the  ancient  world.  Although  his- 
tory and  tradition  still  spoke  of  the  grandiose  palaces  and 
temples  of  Nineveh  and  of  the  towers  and  hanging  gardens 
of  Babylon,  the  general  ignorance  which  almost  from 
the  time  of  the  Arab  conquest  had  prevailed  regarding  the 
actual  sites  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh  was  not  removed  until 

f  Even  Cicero,  declares :  "Et  apud  Herodotum,  patrem  historise  .  .  .  sunt 
Innumerabiles  fabulse."    De  Legisbus  Lib.  I,  Cap.  L 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  349 

the  illustrious  Danish  scholar,  Carsten  Niebuhr,  proved 
that  the  site  of  Babylon  was  in  the  vicinity  of  the  modern 
village  of  Hillah,  and  the  noted  English  investigator, 
Claudius  James  Eich,  demonstrated  in  1821  that  the  mounds 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  Tigris,  just  opposite  Mosul,  covered 
all  that  remained  of  the  famed  city  of  Nineveh.^ 

But  even  after  the  sites  of  Nineveh  and  Babylon  had  been 
identified,  it  was  yet  to  be  proved  that  amid  the  ruins  of 
these  famous  cities  there  were  records  and  monuments 
which  would  shed  light  on  the  civilization  of  which  they 
were  once  such  noted  centers.  The  potsherds  and  frag^ 
ments  of  cylinders  which  travelers  had  found  in  and  about 
the  mounds  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh  led  scholars  to  believe 
that  discoveries  of  greater  value  awaited  the  explorer. 
This  conclusion  was  confirmed  by  the  finding  in  various 
places  of  bricks,  tablets,  and  monuments  covered  with 
strange  inscriptions  which  were  written  in  characters  which 
are  now  designated  as  cuneiform. 

It  was  not,  however,  until  1842  when  the  French  Govern- 
ment— to  which  the  world  of  science  has  long  been  indebted 
for  intelligent  encouragement  and  generous  assistance  in 
every  branch  of  research — sent  Paul  Emil  Botta  to  Mosul 
that  decisive  results  were  obtained.  He  was  ostensibly 
appointed  to  fill  there  the  newly-created  position  of  vice- 
consul,  but,  as  French  commerce  did  not  require  the  service 
of  such  an  official  at  that  point,  he  was  really  designated  to 
act  as  the  head  of  an  archfEological  mission  to  Nineveh  and 
its    environs.     His    appointment,    as    subsequent    events 

^■'  ■.■.■■.  I    ■■   ■  1 1  ■I.I    . .  I  —I.  ,  .1  ■  -  ■— 

8  Arabian  writers,  it  is  true,  had  agreed  "during  nine  hundred  years,  in 
identifying  the  mounds  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Tigris  opposite  Mosul  with 
the  ruins  of  Nineveh"  but  their  views  were  so  far  from  meeting  with  general 
acceptance  that  so  late  as  1843  the  great  French  explorer,  Botta,  was  con- 
vinced when  he  uncovered  the  wonderful  palace  of  Sargon  II,  King  of  Assyria, 
B.  C.  721-705,  that  the  site  of  Nineveh  was  occupied  by  the  ruins  of  Khorsabad. 
But  the  noted  English  investigator,  Layard.  "contrary  to  the  teachings  of 
Arabian  and  Syrian  historians  and  local  tradition,"  was  equally  positive  that 
"the  ruins  of  Nineveh  were  buried  under  the  mound  of  Nimroud,  which  is 
twenty  miles  to  the  south  of  the  actual  site  of  the  famous  Assyrian  capital 
which  was  so  long  the  rival  and  eventually  the  conqueror  of  Babylon.  Of.  By 
Nile  and  Tigris,  Vol.  II,  p.  8  et  seq.,  15,  16  (by  E.  A.  Wallis  Budge,  London, 
1920). 


350  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

proved,  was  a  red-letter  day  in  the  annals  of  Assyrian  re- 
search. For,  not  long  after  his  arrival  in  Mosul,  the  world 
was  thrilled  by  the  news  of  his  marvelous  discoveries  in  the 
long-buried  city  of  Nineveh  and  the  report  that  he  was 
"sending  home  the  spoils  of  superb  ancient  edifices  to 
increase  the  treasures  of  the  Louvre.  ...  A  city  buried  for 
more  than  twenty  centuries  offered  its  remains  for  com- 
parison with  the  aspects  of  modern  London  and  Paris ;  and 
the  sculptured  monuments  of  a  bygone  race  rose  up  to  offer 
a  contrast  with  the  works  of  modern  art. ' '  ® 

Three  years  after  Botta's  arrival  in  Mosul,  Austen  Henry 
Layard  began  his  memorable  excavations  at  Nimroud,  a 
short  distance  to  the  south  of  Nineveh.  So  successful  was 
he  in  his  work  here  and  subsequently  at  Kuyunjik — Citadel 
of  Nineveh — ^that  he  was  soon  able  to  send  a  larger  and  a 
more  valuable  collection  of  antiquities  to  the  British 
Museum  than  that  with  which  Botta  had  enriched  the 
Louvre.  Great,  indeed,  was  the  excitement  in  France  and 
England  when  the  treasures  of  the  long-buried  palaces  of 
Nineveh  were  placed  on  exhibition  and  when  people  had 
before  their  eyes  tangible  evidence  of  that  famed  Assyrian 
capital  which  for  more  than  twenty  centuries  had  left  no 
other  trace  of  its  existence  than  a  name  which  was  a  syno- 
nym of  fabulous  wealth  and  magnificence. 

In  a  work  published  shortly  after  Botta  and  Layard  had 
electrified  the  world  by  their  startling  discoveries,  a  well- 
known  English  scholar,  speaking  of  the  unearthing  of 
Nineveh,  wrote : 

More  than  two  thousand  years  had  it  thus  lain  in  its 
unknown  grave,  when  a  French  savant  and  a  wandering 
English  scholar,  urged  by  a  noble  inspiration,  sought  the 
seat  of  the  once  powerful  empire,  and,  searching  till  they 
found  the  dead  city,  threw  off  its  shroud  of  sand  and  ruin 
and  revealed  once  more  to  an  astonished  and  curious  world 
the  temples,  the  palaces,  the  idols;  the  representations  of 

•TAe  Buried  City  of  the  East:  Nineveh,  Preface  (London,  1851). 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  351 

war  and  the  triumphs  of  peaceful  art  of  the  ancient  Assy- 
rians. The  Nineveh  of  Scripture,  the  Nineveh  of  the  oldest 
historians ;  the  Nineveh — twin-sister  of  Babylon — ^glorying 
in  a  civilization  of  pomp  and  power,  all  traces  of  which 
were  believed  to  be  gone ;  the  Nineveh,  in  which  the  captive 
tribes  of  Israel  had  labored  and  wept,  was,  after  a  sleep 
of  twenty  centuries,  again  brought  to  light.  The  proofs 
of  ancient  splendor  were  again  beheld  by  living  eyes,  and, 
by  the  skill  of  the  draftsman  and  the  pen  of  antiquarian 
travelers,  made  known  to  the  world.^° 

Notices  like  this  which  frequently  appeared  in  books  and 
periodical  literature  had  the  effect  of  exciting  widespread 
enthusiasm  for  the  advancement  of  Assyrian  research. 
Societies  were  organized  for  promoting  excavations  on  a 
larger  scale  than  was  feasible  for  the  first  explorers,  who 
were  greatly  hampered  by  the  lack  of  adequate  funds,  and 
for  giving  due  publicity  to  the  work  of  the  archaeologists 
in  the  field.  The  results  were  most  gratifying,  for  it  was 
not  long  before  explorers  were  investigating  the  mounds  of 
Babylonia  as  well  as  those  of  Assyria. 

Meantime,  under  the  direction  of  George  Smith  and 
Ormuzd  Rassam,  the  mounds  which  covered  the  site  of 
Nineveh  were  made  to  yield  further  treasures  which  were 
quite  as  extraordinary  as  any  which  had  been  brought  to 
light  by  Botta  and  Layard.  A  discovery  by  Smith  of  a  tab- 
let relating,  it  was  supposed,  to  the  Noachian  deluge, 
convinced  many  that  Assyrian  archaeology  was  destined  to 
render  incalculable  aid  in  the  study  of  Sacred  Scripture. 
Although  its  apologetic  value  subsequently  proved  to  be 
greatly  overestimated  by  some  of  the  more  enthusiastic 
students  of  Assyrian  antiquities,  it  soon  became  manifest 
that  the  new  science  was  destined  to  throw  a  flood  of  light 
not  only  on  the  Old  Testament  but  also  on  the  history  of 
the  greatest  nations  of  the  ancient  world. 

We  experienced  special  pleasure  in  exploring  the  mounds 

"10  jfineveh  and  Its  Palaces.  The  Discoveries  of  Botta  and  Layard  Applied 
to  the  Elucidation  of  Holy  Writ,  p.  1  et  seq.  {hj  J.  Bpnomi,  London,  1862). 


352  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

which  covered  the  remains  of  imperial  Nineveh.  There  was 
not,  truth  to  tell,  much  to  see  which  was  either  of  interest 
or  value,  for  everything  of  importance,  that  could  be  trans- 
ported, had  been  forwarded  to  the  museums  of  Europe  as 
soon  as  they  had  been  disinterred. 

On  the  mound  of  Nebi  Yunus — Prophet  Jonas — we  vis- 
ited the  mosque  which  the  Moslems  declare  contains  the 
remains  of  the  prophet  who  preached  repentance  to 
the  sinful  Ninevites. 

This  mosque  [said  our  Dominican  companion]  was  orig- 
inally a  Christian  monastery  that  was  built  in  the  fourth 
century  by  a  disciple  of  St.  Anthony  of  Egypt.  He  named  it 
in  honor  of  the  Prophet  Jonas,  but  when  the  building,  long 
afterwards,  came  into  the  possession  of  the  Mussulmans,  it 
was  converted  into  a  mosque.  It,  however,  retained  its 
original  name — Prophet  Jonas — ^which  it  bears  to  this  day. 

The  inhabitants  here  exhibit  a  flat  stone  which  they 
guard  as  a  treasure  beyond  price.  **It  was  upon  this 
stone,"  they  aver,  ''that  the  great  fish  deposited  Jonas 
when  it  returned  him  to  terra  firma."  Since  that  time  the 
stone  is  reputed  to  have  the  power  of  curing  rheumatism  by 
simply  being  brought  into  contact  with  the  afiQicted  part. 
So  highly  do  the  natives  prize  this  remedial  agent  that 
nothing  could  induce  them  to  part  with  it.  When  we  told 
them  of  the  curative  powers  attributed  to  the  Hittite  stone 
at  Aleppo  they  gravely  assured  us  that  the  stone  of  Neby 
Yunus  possessed  incomparably  greater  efficacy  and  that  it 
afforded  certain  relief  to  all  cases  of  rheumatism  however 
malignant. 

Although  we  were  always  interested  in  listening  to  the 
folklore  of  the  Mussulmans  of  the  Near  East,  we  preferred 
on  this  occasion  to  stroll  over  the  mounds  beneath  which 
were  buried  the  remains  of  one  of  antiquity's  most  cele- 
brated cities  and  to  inspect  the  localities  where  Botta  and 
Layard  and  Ormuzd  Rassam  had  made  those  famous  finds 
which  contributed  so  greatly  to  our  knowledge  of  Assyria 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  353 

and  Babylonia.  Most  of  the  excavations  whence  they  drew 
such  priceless  treasures  had  been  refilled  with  earth,  but 
this  did  not  matter.  We  had  in  various  museums  seen  the 
valuable  monuments  that  had  been  taken  from  them  and 
were,  therefore,  freer  to  indulge  in  day-dreams  than  we  had 
been  when  we  visited  Homer's  Troy. 

Aided  by  the  drawings  of  Place  and  Fergusson  we  found 
it  easy  to  reconstruct  in  fancy  the  superb  palaces  of  Sargon 
and  Eserhaddon  and  Tiglath-pileser,  whose  names  and 
achievements  had  so  impressed  us  in  our  youth.  In  imagi- 
nation we  contemplated  the  colossal  statues  of  winged  lions 
with  human  heads,  which  stood  at  the  portals  of  the  palace 
of  Sennacherib,  and  fixed  our  gaze  on  the  marvelous  bas- 
relief  and  sculptures — reminders  of  the  frieze  of  the  Par- 
thenon— which  adorned  the  vast  halls  and  exhibited  the 
monarch's  exploits  in  the  chase  and  in  wars  innumerable." 
We  could  observe  Sennacherib  himself  standing  on  an 
elevated  outlook  of  his  palace  and  watching  *'the  marching 
forth  of  the  hosts  of  Assur  and  the  smoke  of  their  holo- 
causts spreading  over  all  the  lands,"  or  pensively  pacing 
a  lofty  tiled  terrace  which  overlooked  the  swift-flowing 
waters  of  the  Tigris  and  the  broad  expanse  of  the  western 
desert  illumined  by  the  crimson  glow  of  the  setting  sun. 

But  a  more  fascinating  scene  engages  our  attention.  It 
recalls  one  described  in  the  book  of  Esther,"  in  which  King 
Assuerus  is  represented  as  having  his  annalists  and  wise 
men  read  for  him  "the  histories  and  chronicles  of  former 
times."  Before  us  is  Asurbanipal — ^the  Grand  Monarch 
of  Assyria — surrounded  by  his  scribes  and  sages  and  intent 
on  the  examination  of  a  recent  addition  to  the  royal  library. 
For,  after  many  years  spent  in  military  campaigns  in  Syria, 
Palestine,  Egypt,  Susiana,  and  elsewhere,  he  resolved  to 

11  "At  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  B.C.,  Asurbanipal's  sculptors  at 
Nineveh  were  representing  horses  which  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon  can 
hardly  equal,  and  lions  which  no  sculptor  has  ever  surpassed  in  careful  ob- 
servations and  truthful  delineation."  The  Ancient  History  of  the  Near  East, 
p.  536  (by  H.  R.  Hall,  Loudon,  1913). 

12  vi:   1. 


354  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

devote  the  remainder  of  his  life  to  the  arts  and  avocations 
of  peace.  Numerous  temples  and  palaces  in  many  parts  of 
Assyria  and  Babylonia  bear  witness  to  his  activity  as  a 
builder  and  to  the  magnificence  of  the  structures  erected 
to  his  own  glory  and  to  that  of  his  gods. 

But  it  was  in  his  gorgeous  palace  at  Nineveh  that  he  had 
the  joy  of  his  life — that  which  was  to  perpetuate  his  name 
to  the  end  of  time.  This  was  his  library — the  largest  and 
most  valuable  collection  of  documents  that  the  world  had 
yet  seen.  Composed  of  myriads  of  inscribed  tablets,  they 
were  fortunately  made  of  a  material — ^baked  and  unbaked 
clay — ^which,  for  more  than  two  millennia,  successfully  with- 
stood all  the  ravages  of  war  and  the  elements.  They 
treated  of  mathematics,  astronomy,  history,  poetry,  gram- 
mar, lexicography,  law,  religion — in  a  word,  of  the  entire 
circle  of  the  sciences  of  the  ancient  world. 

Asurbanipal — an  Assyrian  Mascenas — ^was  not  only  the 
patron  of  scholars,  whom  he  encouraged  to  produce  new 
books  on  every  branch  of  science  and  literature,  but  was 
also,  as  a  collector,  the  worthy  forerunner  and  rival  of  the 
bibliophilous  rulers  of  Pergamum  and  Alexandria.  He  had 
his  scribes  visit  all  the  libraries  of  Babylonia — the  earliest 
home  of  science  and  letters — and  had  them  make  copies  of 
all  works  of  value  which  did  not  exist  in  his  own  library. 
So  indefatigable,  indeed,  was  the  King  as  a  collector  that 
it  is  probably  true — as  has  been  stated — that  he  had  in  his 
extensive  library  a  copy  of  all  the  books  that  existed  in 
the  numerous  libraries  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia. 

The  discovery  of  Asurbanipal 's  library  surpassed  in 
importance  any  that  had  ever  been  made  in  either  the  valley 
of  the  Tigris  or  of  the  Euphrates.  But  every  tablet  in  this 
immense  collection  was  absolutely  a  sealed  book,  for  there 
was  not  anyone  living  then  who  was  able  to  decipher  a  single 
sentence  of  those  mysterious  documents  which  had  thus  so 
unexpectedly  been  brought  to  day.  When  Layard,  in  the 
course  of  his  exploration  of  the  vast  palace  of  Asurbanipal, 
first  beheld  the  priceless  contents  of  the  royal  halls  of 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  355 

records,  his  emotions  must  have  been  like  those  of  Shelley's 
Alastor  in  the  temples  of  Egypt,  for 

^mong  the  ruined  temples  there, 

Stupendous  columns  and  wild  images 

Of  more  than  man,  where  marble  demons  watch 

The  zodiac's  brazen  mystery,  and  dead  men 

Hat^e  their  mute  thoughts  on  the  mute  walls  around. 

He  lingered,  pouring  on  memorials 

Of  the  world's  youth;,  nor  when  the  moon 

Filled  the  mysterious  halls  with  floating  shades 

Suspended  he  that  task,  hut  ever  gazed 

And  gazed 

on  precious  monuments  before  him  which  he  knew  full  well 
contained 

The  thrilling  secrets  of  the  birth  of  fiwe.*' 

The  identification  of  the  site  of  Nineveh  and  the  unearth- 
ing of  its  long-concealed  monuments  marked  the  beginning 
of  a  new  era  in  Oriental  research.  But  nothing  gave  so 
great  a  stimulus  to  the  study  of  all  things  Assyrian  and 
Babylonian  as  the  discovery  of  the  precious  library  of  Asur- 
banipal.  For  this  wonderful  collection  of  documents  was 
destined  to  disclose  much  of  the  history,  science,  literature, 
and  politics  of  the  famous  land  bounded  by  the  Tigris  and 
the  Euphrates,  and  to  show — ^what  would  not  otherwise 
have  been  possible — the  relation  of  this  land  to  the  other 
great  nations  of  the  Near  East. 

But  who  was  to  decipher  the  cuneiform  tablets  which 
were  thus  so  unexpectedly  brought  to  the  light  of  day? 
That  was  the  question  that  was  on  the  lips  of  everyone. 
Until  this  could  be  accomplished  the  countless  books  of  the 
royal  library  would  be  of  little  more  value  than  so  many 
useless  curiosities. 

18  See  his  Discoveries  in  the  Ruins  of  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  pp.  342-345 
(London,  1853)  ;  cf.  also  Hormuzd  Rassam's  Asshur  and  the  Land  of  the  Nim- 
rod,  p.  31  (New  York,  1897),  which  gives  an  account  of  the  discovery  of  more 
tablets,  among  which  were  the  famed  Deluge  tablets. 


356  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

That  the  work  of  decipherment  would  eventually  be 
achieved,  scholars  had  no  doubt.  That  the  languages  in 
which  the  mysterious  inscriptions  were  written  would  one 
day  be  read  with  ease  and  certainty,  all  investigators  were 
convinced.  The  achievements  of  Champollion  in  decipher- 
ing the  hieroglyphics  of  Egypt  and  of  De  Sacy  in  reading 
Pehlevi  gave  an  assurance  that  eventually  the  mysterious 
Assyro-Babylonian  inscriptions  would  also  be  elucidated 
and  that  the  long-forgotten  documents  of  Asurbanipal's 
library  would  then  become  the  chief  sources  of  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  most  ancient  and  most  powerful  empires  of 
western  Asia. 

Nothing  in  the  entire  history  of  intellectual  advancement 
is  more  interesting  and  romantic  than  the  story  of  the 
gradual  decipherment  of  those  strange  cuneiform  inscrip- 
tions whose  interpretation  long  baffled  the  powers  of  the 
greatest  linguistic  geniuses  of  Europe. 

The  discovery  of  the  key  to  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphic 
inscriptions  was  practically  the  work  of  one  man — the  im- 
mortal Jean  Frangois  Champollion.  The  decipherment  of 
the  Assyro-Babylonian  inscriptions  was  the  joint  achieve- 
ment of  many  men,  laboring  during  many  generations,  in 
many  and  widely  separated  parts  of  Asia  and  Europe.  It 
was  effected  by  daring  travelers  and  explorers,  by  philolo- 
gists, philosophers,  and  historians,  most  of  them  laboring 
independently  of  one  another,  but  all  working,  although 
nearly  always  unconsciously,  toward  the  same  goal. 

And  an  even  more  singular  fact  was  that  the  first  clue 
towards  the  unraveling  of  the  great  enigma  was  found  far 
away  from  both  Assyria  and  Babylonia  and  in  a  place  where 
an  explorer  bent  on  searching  for  it  would  certainly  not 
look  for  it.  This  place  was  Persepolis,  where  are  the  re- 
mains of  the  splendid  edifices  constructed  by  Darius  I, 
Xerxes  I,  and  Artaxerxes  I,  the  celebrated  Persian  Kings 
of  the  Achaemenian  dynasty. 

So  far  as  known  the  first  European  to  visit  these  remark- 
able ruins  was  the  noted  Franciscan  friar,  Fra  Oderico, 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  357 

on  his  way  to  Cathy  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  fourteenth 
century. 

In  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  Persepolis  was 
visited  by  an  Augustinian  monk,  Antonio  de  Gouvea,  whom 
Philip  III,  King  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  had  sent  as  an 
ambassador  to  Shah  Abbas  the  Great,  King  of  Persia. 
Among  the  many  things  which  attracted  his  attention  in  the 
old  Persian  city  were  the  inscriptions  which  he  saw  on  the 
monuments,  which,  '  *  although  they  are  in  many  parts  very 
distinct,  there  is  nevertheless  no  one  who  can  read  them, 
for  they  are  not  written  in  Persian,  or  Arabic  or  Armenian 
or  Hebrew,  which  are  the  languages  spoken  in  this  land. ' ' " 

Some  thirty  years  later  Gouvea  was  followed,  as  ambas- 
sador to  Shah  Abbas  from  Philip  III,  by  Don  Garcia  de 
Sylva  y  Figueroa,  who  wrote  a  letter  on  the  monuments  of 
Persepolis  which  attracted  deep  interest  when  published 
in  Europe  in  1620.  In  this  communication  he  speaks  of 
''one  notable  inscription  cut  in  a  Jasper-table,  with  charac- 
ters still  so  fresh  and  faire  that  one  would  wonder  how  it 
could  escape  so  many  ages  without  touch  of  the  least  blem- 
ish. The  Letters  themselves  are  neither  Chaldsean  nor 
Hebrew,  nor  Greeke,  nor  Arabike,  nor  of  any  other  Nation 
which  was  ever  found  of  old,  or  at  this  day,  to  be  extant. 
They  are  all  three-cornered,  but  somewhat  long,  of  the 
forms  of  a  pyramide,  or  such  a  little  Obliske  as  I  have  set 
in  the  margine :  (  A  )  so  that  in  nothing  do  they  differ  one 
from  one  another,  but  in  their  placing  and  situation,  yet 
so  conformed  that  they  are  wondrous  plaine,  distinct  and 
perspicuous."^" 

But  the  first  one  to  make  known  these  peculiar  characters 
to  the  scholars  of  Europe  was  the  learned  traveler,  Pietro 
della  Valle,  of  whom  we  have  already  spoken.  And  it  was 
thus  that  this  eminent  Roman  patrician  had  the  honor  of 
being  the  first  of  that  long  line  of  investigators  whose  labors 

1*  Relagam  am  em  que  se  tratam  as  gueras  e  grandes  victorias  que  alcancou 
o  grade  rey  da  Persia  Xa  Abbas  do  grSo  Turco  Mahometto  and  seu  Filho 
Amethe,  pello  Padre  F.  Antonio  de  Gouvea  (Lisboa,  1611). 

i^fPurchaa  Hia  Pilgrimes,  Part  II,  pp.  1533,  1534  (Loudon,  1626). 


358  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

have  resulted  in  building  up  that  comprehensive  branch  of 
science  now  known  as  Assyriology.^' 

From  the  time  of  Pietro  della  Valle  the  number  of  trav- 
elers who  visited  the  ruins  of  Persepolis  and  wrote  of  the 
inscriptions  which  they  saw  on  the  ruins  of  this  old  Persian 
capital  rapidly  increased.  But,  although  their  published 
observations  failed  to  arouse  any  special  interest  at  the 
time,  some  of  them  deserve  at  least  a  passing  notice  for 
the  quaint  language  in  which  the  views  of  the  authors  found 
expression.  Thus  Thomas  Herbert,  referring  to  the  inscrip- 
tions of  Persepolis,  writes : 

Wee  noted  above  a  dozen  lynes  of  strange  characters, 
very  f aire  and  apparent  to  the  eye,  but  so  mysticall,  so  oddly 
framed,  as  no  Hierogliphick,  no  other  deep  conceit  can  be 
more  difficulty  fancied,  more  adverse  to  the  intellect.  .  .  . 
And,  though  it  have  small  concordance  with  the  Hebrew, 
Greek,  of  Latine  letter,  yet  questionlesse  to  the  Inventer  it 
was  well  knowne;  and  peradventure  may  conceale  some 
excellent  matter,  though  to  this  day  wrapt  up  in  the  dim 
leafes  of  envious  obscuritie.^^ 

The  Italian,  Spanish,  and  English  writers  on  Persepolis 
were  followed  by  travelers  and  writers  of  other  nationali- 
ties. Among  these  were  Jean  Chardin  of  France,  Cornelis 
de  Bruin  of  Holland,  Engelrecht  Kaempfer  of  Germany, 
and  Carsten  Niebuhr,  a  German,  long  in  the  service  of  Den- 
mark. Each  of  these  men  made  a  contribution — ^small 
though  it  was — towards  the  decipherment  of  the  Perse- 
politan  inscriptions. 

Chardin  was  the  first  to  reproduce  in  his  superbly  illus- 
trated work  ^*  an  entire  inscription  from  one  of  the  monu- 

16  As  to  the  signification  of  the  strange,  wedge-shaped  character  described  by 
the  noted  Italian  traveler,  Pietro  della  Valle  admits  that  he  knows  nothing.  In 
the  fifteenth  chapter  of  his  Tiaggi  he  frankly  declares:  "E  queste  iscritzioni 
in  que  lingua  e  lettera  siano  non  si  sa  perche  fe  caratere  oggi  ignoto." 

17  Some  Yeares  Travels  into  Divers  Parts  of  Asia  and  Afrique,  p.  145  et  seq. 
(London, 1638). 

18  Chardin  became  an  English  citizen  and  achieved  such  fame  as  a  traveler 
that  a  tablet  was  dedicated  to  his  memory  in  Westminster  Abbey  bearing  the 
legend  "Sir  John  Chardin — nomen  sibi  fecit  eundo." 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  359 

ments  of  Persepolis.  This,  to  scholars,  was  incomparably 
more  valuable  than  any  of  the  fragments  that  had  hitherto 
come  to  Europe.  De  Bruin,  who  visited  Persepolis  in  1704, 
and  subsequently  published  a  book  with  magnificent  views 
of  the  ruins  of  the  old  Achaemenia  capital,  together  with 
numerous  inscriptions  from  its  monuments,  put  more 
material  in  the  hands  of  scholars  than  had  any  of  his  prede- 
cessors. Kaempfer  advanced  a  step  further  when  he 
published  in  1712  a  long  inscription  in  Assyro-Babylonian. 

But  of  the  four  travelers  mentioned  the  one  who  per- 
formed the  most  important  work  was  Niebuhr,  an  experi- 
enced traveler,  an  accurate  observer  and  a  man  of  broad 
scholarship.  Besides  making  careful  drawings  and  meas- 
urements of  the  monuments  of  Persepolis — ^monuments 
which  in  many  respects  were  the  most  important  in  the 
East — ^he  made  copies  of  numerous  cuneiform  texts  which 
had  not  appeared  in  any  preceding  work.  His  studies  of 
the  inscriptions  also  led  him  to  conclude  that  there  were 
three  classes  of  them  and  that  they  were,  as  some  of  his 
predecessors  had  surmised,  to  be  read  from  left  to  right. 
He  had  thus  not  only  supplied  scholars  with  new  and  valu- 
able material  but,  by  his  comparative  study,  blazed  the  way 
which  led  to  their  final  decipherment. 

Among  the  first  to  attempt  decipherment  of  these  inscrip- 
tions were  such  distinguished  philologists  as  Professor 
Tychsen,  of  the  University  of  Rostock,  and  Friedrich  Hun- 
ter, of  Copenhagen,  and  such  eminent  Orientalists  as 
Eugene  Burnouf,  Anquetil-Duperron,  and  Silvestre  de 
Sacy,  who  was  the  most  eminent  Arabist  of  his  age.  They 
did  not  succeed  in  solving  the  problem  which  had  so  long 
baffled  the  keenest  minds  of  Europe,  but  they  had  accumu- 
lated the  material  that  was  necessary  for  its  solution. 

Several  years  before  Botta  and  Layard  sent  their  vast 
stores  of  tablets  from  Nineveh  and  Nimroud  to  the  Louvre 
and  the  British  Museum,  it  was  evident  from  the  few  speci- 
mens of  cuneiform  inscriptions  which  had  reached  Europe 
from  Mesopotamia  that  the  script  on  the  Babylonian  tab- 


360  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

lets  was  the  same  as  one  of  the  varieties  occurring  in  the 
trilingual  inscriptions  of  Persepolis.  It  was  then  only  a 
step  to  the  conclusion  that  these  two  scripts  were  identical 
and  represented  identical  languages.  Thanks  to  the  re- 
searches of  De  Sacy,  Burnouf,  Anquetil-Duperron,  and 
others,  it  was  now  possible  to  make  the  old  Persian  script — 
the  first  class — of  the  trilingual  inscriptions  of  Persepolis 
serve  as  a  key  to  the  third  class,  or  what  is  now  designated 
as  the  Assyro-Babylonian  script.  The  process  was  exactly 
similar  to  that  which  enabled  Champollion  to  use  the  Greek 
on  the  Rosetta  stone  as  a  key  to  the  mysterious  hierogly- 
phics of  the  Egypt  of  the  Pharaohs. 

But,  although  the  method  to  be  adopted  seemed  simple 
enough,  the  labor  involved  was  incomparably  greater  than 
that  which  was  required  of  the  illustrious  French  savant. 
For  the  Greek  on  the  Rosetta  stone  was  a  well-known  lan- 
guage, whereas  Old  Persian,  which  was  to  serve  as  the  key 
for  deciphering  the  Babylonian  script,  was  itself  quite  as 
unknown  as  the  writing  to  be  deciphered.  It  was  only  after 
a  knowledge  of  Old  Persian  had  been  acquired  by  comparing 
it  with  Avestan,  Pahlavi,  and  Sanscrit,  that  it  could  serve 
as  the  long-sought  key  to  Assyro-Babylonian. 

The  first  one  to  read  an  Old  Persian  word  was  Georg 
Friederich  Grotefend.  This  was  in  1802,  when  he  was  only 
twenty-seven  years  of  age  and  without  any  knowledge  of 
oriental  languages.  Nevertheless,  he  was,  wonderful  to 
relate,  able  ''to  solve  the  riddle  practically  in  a  few  days, 
that  had  puzzled  much  older  men  and  scholars  apparently 
much  better  qualified  than  himself.  Under  the  magical 
touch  of  his  hand  the  mystic  and  complicated  characters 
of  ancient  Persia  suddenly  gained  new  life.  But  when  he 
was  far  enough  advanced  to  announce  to  the  Academy  of 
Sciences  in  Gottingen  the  epoch-making  discovery  which 
established  his  reputation  for  ever,  that  learned  body, 
though  comprising  men  of  eminent  mental  training  and 
intelligence,  strange  to  say,  declined  to  publish  the  Latin 
memoirs  of  this  little-known  college  teacher,  who  did  not 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  361 

belong  to  the  University  circle  proper  nor  was  even  an 
Orientalist  by  profession.  It  was  not  until  ninety  years 
later — 1893 — that  his  original  papers  were  rediscovered 
and  published  by  Prof.  Wilhelm  Meyer,  of  Gottingen,  in  the 
Academy's  transactions — a  truly  unique  case  of  post  mor- 
tem examination  in  science. ' '  ^® 

Notwithstanding,  however,  the  attitude  of  the  Gottingen 
Academy  of  Sciences,  scholars  like  De  Sacy,  Heeren,  and 
others  were  not  slow  to  recognize  the  importance  of  Grote- 
f end's  far-reaching  discoveries.  The  number  of  investi- 
gators in  the  studies  of  Europe  and  in  the  ruin-dotted  plains 
of  Persia  and  Mesopotamia  gradually  increased.  The  care- 
ful researches  of  Niebuhr  were  followed  in  the  first  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century  by  the  painstaking  observations 
of  Rich,  Ker  Porter,  and  Colonel  Chesney.  But  while  those 
noted  explorers  were  winning  laurels  in  the  valleys  of  the 
Tigris  and  the  Euphrates,  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  ''forced 
the  inaccessible  rock  of  Behistun  to  surrender  the  great 
trilingual  inscription  of  Darius,  which,  in  the  quietude  of 
his  study  on  the  Tigris,  became  the  'Rosetta  Stone'  of 
Assyriology  and  in  his  master  hand  the  key  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  Assyrian  documents."  ^"^ 

19  Explorations  in  Bible  Lands  during  the  19th  Century,  pp.  23,  24  (by  H.  V. 
Hilprecht,  Philadelphia,  1903). 

How  Grotefend  achieved  such  marvelous  success  when  others,  apparently 
more  competent  than  he,  had  failed  has  been  explained  by  the  fact  that  "he 
early  displayed  a  remarkable  aptitude  for  the  solution  of  riddles:  a  peculiar 
talent  which  he  shared  in  common  with  Dr.  Hincks.  who  also  acquired  great 
distinction  as  a  cuneiform  scholar."  The  Discovery  and  Decipherment  of  the 
Trilingual  Cuneiform  Inscriptions,  p.  169   (by  A.  J.  Booth,  London,  1902). 

Dr.  R.  W.  Rogers,  in  his  instructive  work,  A  History  of  Babylonia  and 
Assyria,  Vol.  I,  p.  61  (New  York,  1915),  referring  to  the  same  subjects, 
writes : 

"It  were  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  define  the  qualities  of  mind  which 
must  inhere  in  the  decipherer  of  a  forgotten  language.  He  is  not  necessarily 
a  great  scholar,  though  great  scholars  have  been  successful  decipherers.  He 
may  know  but  little  of  the  languages  that  are  cognate  with  the  one  whose 
secrets  he  is  trying  to  unravel.  He  may,  indeed,  know  nothing  of  them,  aa 
has  several  times  been  the  case.  But  the  patience,  the  persistence,  the  power 
of  combination,  the  divine  gift  of  insight,  the  historical  sense,  the  feeling  for 
achffiological  indications,  these  must  be  present,  and  all  of  these  were  present 
in  the  extraordinary  man,  Grotefend,  who  now  attacked  the  problem  that 
had  baflBed  so  many." 

20  Hilprecht,  op.  cit.,  p.  71 ;  cf.  A  Memoir  of  Major  General  Sir  Henry 
Cresuneke  Rawlinson,  pp.  143-148,  153-157  (by  his  brother,  Canon  George 
Rawlinson,  London,  1898);  Booth,  op.  cit.,  pp.  106-114. 


362  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

While  Rawlinson  was  conducting  his  celebrated  investi- 
gations relating  to  the  trilingual  inscription  of  Behistun, 
and  Layard  and  Rassam  were  unearthing  the  priceless 
documents  of  Asurbanipal's  library,  Edward  Hincks  in 
Ireland,  Edwin  Norris  in  England,  Eugene  Burnouf  and 
M.  de  Saulcy  in  France,  Westergaard,  a  Dane,  and  Lassen, 
a  Norwegian,  both  living  in  Germany,  were  astonishing  the 
learned  world  by  their  wonderful  contributions  towards 
the  decipherment  of  the  inscriptions  of  Persepolis  and 
Behistun  and  of  tablets  and  seals  and  cylinders  taken  from 
the  temples  and  palaces  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia. 

Thanks  to  the  investigators  named  and  to  a  rapidly 
increasing  number  of  others,  the  decipherment  of  Assyrian 
inscription  was  gradually  assuming  the  dignity  of  an  exact 
science.  But  there  were  still  scholars  of  acknowledged 
eminence  who  questioned  the  validity  of  the  system  em- 
ployed and  who  openly  expressed  grave  doubts  about  the 
translations  of  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  which  had  been 
published  by  divers  scholars  of  Great  Britain  and  the 
Continent. 

Finally,  in  1857,  it  was  suggested  to  make  a  test  which 
should  silence  all  objectors  and  demonstrate  that  the 
method  of  the  decipherers  reposed  on  a  scientific  basis.  An 
Assyrian  text  was  translated  independently  by  Hincks, 
Talbot,  Oppert,  and  Rawlinson,  and  sent  sealed  to  the  Royal 
Asiatic  Society.  When  these  versions  were  compared  by 
a  committee  of  distinguished  scholars  they  were  found  to 
show  such  a  remarkable  correspondence  that  there  could 
no  longer  be  any  reasonable  doubt  as  to  the  system  of 
decipherment  or  the  substantial  accuracy  of  the  four  trans- 
lations which  had  been  offered  to  the  distinguished  com- 
mittee of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society. 

But,  notwithstanding  this  remarkable  confirmation  of  the 
correctness  of  the  method  of  decipherment  employed  by 
Assyriologists,  there  still  remained  a  certain  number  of 
skeptics  even  among  the  most  noted  scholars  of  the  age — 
men  like  Gutschmid  in  Germany  and  Renan  and  Gobineau 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  363 

in  France — ^who  refused  to  admit  the  conclusiveness  of  the 
demonstration  which  had  silenced  most  other  objectors. 
Even  after  the  French  Institute  on  July  15,  1863,  had 
awarded  to  Oppert  the  coveted  quinquennial  prize  of 
twenty  thousand  francs  for  ''that  work  or  discovery  which 
is  best  calculated  to  honor  or  serve  the  country,"  skepticism 
still  persisted  among  certain  Orientalists.^^  Indeed,  it  was 
not  until  the  appearance  in  1872  of  the  masterly  Die  Assy- 
risch — Bahylonischen  Keilenschriften  of  Eberhard  Schra- 
der  that  general  confidence  in  the  prevailing  system  of 
cuneiform  decipherment  was  firmly  established  and  that  all 
opposition  to  its  methods  was  finally  abandoned. 

Seventy  years  had  elapsed  from  the  reading  by  Grotefend 
of  his  epochal  paper  before  the  Gottingen  Academy  to  the 
publication  of  Schrader's  great  work  on  the  cuneiform 
writing  and  language.  From  the  time  of  Schrader,  who  has 
been  called  the  father  of  early  Assyriology,  to  the  splendid 
achievements  of  his  illustrious  countryman,  Friedrich 
Delitzsch,  who  is  known  as  the  father  of  contemporary 
Assyriology,  progress  in  the  new  science  has  been  as  rapid 
as  the  activity  of  its  countless  votaries  has  been-  enthusi- 
astic. This  is  evidenced  by  the  large  number  of  cuneiform 
monuments  which  are  now  found  in  the  museums  of  Europe 
and  America  and  by  the  ever-increasing  number  of  scholars 
who  are  devoting  all  their  time  to  the  study  of  Assyrian 
science,  religion,  and  literature. 

It  is  estimated  that  there  are  now,  in  the  divers  museums 
of  the  world,  more  than  a  half  million  inscribed  tablets. 
Besides  the  immense  number  of  tablets  found  in  the  great 
library  of  Asurbanipal,  Rassam  discovered  in  Abu-Habba, 
formerly  Hillah,  no  fewer  than  seventy  thousand.  In  1894 
M.  Ernest  de  Sarzec  took  from  a  single  chamber  in  the 


21  Although  it  was  supposed  that  this  prize,  awarded  by  so  learned  a  body 
as  the  French  Institute,  would  be  tantamount  to  une  sanction  qui  devrait 
diasiper  toutea  lea  auaciptibiliUa,  many  remained  as  skeptical  as  ever  and 
continued  "to  decry  a  language  in  which  one  can  never  know  if  a  syllable  is 
ideographic  or  phonetic,  and,  when  phonetic,  which  of  two  or  three  different 
values  it  may  have  in  that  place."    Cf.  A.  J.  Booth,  op.  cit.,  p.  416. 


364  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

ruined  city  of  Telloh,  in  the  alluvial  plain  of  Babylonia, 
fully  thirty  thousand  tablets,  while  a  few  years  later  Haynes 
and  Hilprecht  to  the  north  of  Telloh,  in  the  ruins  of  Nip- 
pur, discovered  more  than  forty  thousand  tablets,  which 
have  proved  to  be  of  inestimable  value  to  the  student  of  the 
history,  religion,  and  social  conditions  of  the  inhabitants 
of  ancient  Sumer  and  Akkad.  Still  other  stores  of  tablets 
were  unearthed  by  Banks  at  Bismya  and  De  Morgan  at 
Susa.  Among  the  precious  monuments  brought  to  light  by 
the  distinguished  French  explorer  of  Susa  was  the  impor- 
tant code  of  Hammurabi — the  oldest  compilation  of  laws  in 
the  world — the  code  by  which  Babylonia  was  governed  at  a 
period  which  antedated  the  Christian  era  by  fully  two 
thousand  years. 

But  the  inscribed  clay  tablets — some  baked,  others  un- 
baked— are  not  the  only  monuments  of  value  as  sources  of 
history  which  have  been  uncovered  by  the  pick  and  spade 
of  the  excavator  in  the  tells  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia. 
There  are  also  seals,  statues,  cylinders,  and  bas-reliefs 
innumerable  which  bear  cuneiform  inscriptions  of  the 
utmost  value  to  the  historian  and  the  man  of  science.  There 
are  even  numberless  uninscribed  monuments  which  are  also 
of  immense  historical  importance.  Such  are  the  sculptured 
alabaster  slabs  which  once  adorned  the  palace  of  Senna- 
cherib in  Nineveh.  These  marvelous  bas-reliefs  exhibit 
scenes  of  domestic  life,  the  peculiar  garbs  of  men  and 
women,  of  masters  and  slaves,  of  natives  and  foreigners 
with  almost  photographic  exactness.  They  likewise  show 
spirited  representations  of  battles  and  sieges,  which  por- 
tray in  the  most  lifelike  manner  the  types  of  the  combat- 
ants, their  divers  instruments  of  warfare,  the  punishments 
inflicted  by  the  victor  on  helpless  captives,  and  long  pro- 
cessions of  the  vanquished  bringing  tribute  to  the  triumph- 
ant monarch  of  Assyria, 

Without  the  knowledge  of  a  single  cuneiform  character 
[declares  Professor  Hilprecht]  we  learned  the  principal 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  365 

events  of  Sennacherib's  government,  and,  from  a  mere 
study  of  those  sculptured  walls,  we  got  familiar  with  cus- 
toms and  habits  of  the  ancient  Assyrians,  at  the  same  time 
obtaining  a  first  clear  glance  of  the  whole  civiUzation  of 
Western  Asia.'^^ 

The  foregoing  pages  show  the  extraordinary  progress 
that  has  been  made  in  Assyriology  since  Botta  and  Layard 
began  their  famous  excavations  in  the  ruins  of  Nineveh  in 
the  middle  of  the  last  century.  But,  although  much,  very 
much,  has  been  achieved,  far  more  remains  to  be  accom^ 
plished.  For  there  are,  we  are  assured,  hundreds  of  ruin- 
mounds  and  earth-covered  cities  in  Western  Asia  awaiting 
the  spade  and  the  pick  of  the  excavator  to  disclose  treasures 
that  will  equal,  if  not  surpass  in  value  any  that  have  yet 
rewarded  the  labors  of  the  explorer.  Even  such  important 
ruins  as  those  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh,  where  such  splendid 
results  have  been  obtained,  have  so  far  yielded,  there  is 
reason  to  believe,  but  a  part,  possibly  but  a  small  part,  of 
their  precious  stores.  For  it  has  been  computed  that  to 
excavate  Kuyunjik  and  Nebi  Yunus — the  two  principal 
mounds  of  Nineveh — ^would  require  the  labor  of  a  thousand 
men  working  continually  for  a  hundred  and  seventy-four 
years.  "The  recent  excavations  and  tunnelings  at  Kuyun- 
jik"— the  Citadel  of  Nineveh — ''fruitful  as  they  have  been 
in  results,  have  made  little  impression  on  the  vast  mass  of 
ruin,  and  only  prove  how  much  might  be  gained  by  complete 
clearance. ' '  ^' 

But  as  the  work  of  excavation  is  still  almost  in  its  infancy, 
so  is  also  that  of  decipherment  and  coordination  of  the 
myriads  of  inscriptions  now  in  the  museums  of  the  world. 
For,  notwithstanding  the  wonderful  achievements  of  Assy- 
riologists  during  the  last  three-quarters  of  a  century,  many 
generations  must  yet  elapse  before  the  vast  amount  of 
material  which  has  been  already  collected  and  to  which 

22  Op.  cit.,  pp.  118,  119. 

2*  New  Light  on  the  Bible  and  the  Holy  Land,  p.  10    (by  B.  T.  Evetts, 
New  York). 


366  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

additions  are  being  constantly  made,  can  be  properly  inter- 
preted and  made  available  for  students  who  are  not  pro- 
fessional Orientalists.  As  yet  there  is  in  Assyrian  neither 
a  complete  grammar  nor  a  complete  dictionary,  and,  on 
account  of  the  immense  number  of  ideograms  yet  un- 
deciphered  and  the  astonishing  number  of  polyphonous 
signs  in  the  Assyrian  language — signs  which  have  each 
several  distinct  syllabic  values — ^it  is  certain  that  many 
decades  will  elapse  before  the  countless  difficulties  can  be 
overcome. 

Considering,  however,  the  complexity  of  the  problem 
which  confronted  Orientalists  at  the  beginnings  of  their 
researches,  it  is,  indeed,  a  wonder  that  their  achievements 
during  the  last  two  generations  have  been  so  fruitful  and 
of  so  far-reaching  importance.  For  in  a  few  decades  they 
have  changed  completely  our  conception  of  the  ancient 
peoples  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia  and  shown  that  their 
civilization  * '  stands  before  us  in  all  its  ramifications  as  one 
of  the  great  forces  in  the  ancient  history  of  mankind,  the 
direct  or  indirect  influence  of  which  is  to  be  seen  in  many 
a  phase  of  our  modern  culture."  ^*  They  have  proved  that 
the  Assyrian  language  was  not  only  the  speech  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Mesopotamia  but  that  it  was  also  long  used  as  the 
language  of  diplomacy  by  the  Hittites  and  the  Egyptians 
and  by  the  peoples  of  Syria  and  Palestine.  More  than  this, 
it  was  a  kind  of  lingua  franca  from  the  Euxine  to  the  valley 
of  the  Nile  and  from  Cyprus  to  the  plateau  of  Susiana.  This 
fact  is  most  strikingly  proved  by  the  priceless  collections 
of  cuneiform  inscriptions  which,  only  a  few  years  ago,  were 
found  in  Tel-el- Armana,  Egypt,  and  in  Boghaz-Keui,  Asia 
Minor.  These  finds  are  indications  that  there  are  other, 
probably  many  other,  similar  discoveries  to  reward  the 
patient  and  well-directed  excavations  of  the  explorer  in 
the  ruin-spread  lands  of  the  Near  East. 

How  often,  while  wandering  among  the  ruins  of  Kujnm- 

f  ■ ' 

2*  The  Civilization  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  p.  110  (by  M.  Jastrow,  Phila- 
delphia, 19],5). 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  367 

jik>  Nebi  Yunus,  and  Khorsabad,  have  I  not  had  brought 
home  to  me  the  far-reaching  changes  in  our  knowledge  of 
the  Near  East,  which  have  been  effected  by  the  startling 
discoveries  that  were  made  three-quarters  of  a  century  ago 
in  the  palaces  of  Sargon  and  Sennacherib  and  Asurbanipal  I 
But  nothing  impressed  me  more  than  the  first  question 
which  Scriptural  students  always  make  regarding  these 
discoveries,  **How  do  they  bear  on  the  Bible"?  It  is  the 
same  question  which  has  so  often  been  asked  about  the 
revelations  of  geology  in  their  bearings  on  the  Sacred  Text. 
Something  is  discovered  which  at  the  first  blush  is  regarded 
as  militating  against  the  accuracy  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures. 
After  further  investigation,  this  same  discovery  is  viewed 
as  being  strongly  confirmatory  of  the  Bible,  while  still  more 
careful  examination  shows  that  the  teachings  of  the  new 
science  not  only  do  not  but,  by  their  very  nature,  cannot 
question,  much  less  impeach  the  veracity  of  the  Book  of 
Books. 

It  is  true  that  one's  view  of  the  Bible  may  be  enlarged 
with  one's  advancing  years;  that  one's  understanding  of 
it  may  be  improved  by  more  profound  study,  and  by  the 
progress  of  research ;  but  science,  whether  it  appear  in  the 
guise  of  geology,  or  Assyriology,  or  of  what  has  falsely 
been  called  the  science  of  evolution,  can  never  invalidate 
a  single  one  of  the  fundamental  teachings  either  of  Scrip- 
ture or  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 

This  thought  was  borne  in  upon  me  with  unwonted  force 
as  I  stood  one  day  above  the  ruins  of  Asurbanipal 's  library. 
Gazing  at  a  cluster  of  keleks — skin  rafts — ^bearing  their 
light  traffic  down  the  historic  Tigris,  as  they  did  when 
Assyria  ruled  the  East,  and  recalling  the  pictures  I  had 
formed  of  "Nineveh  the  great  city"  when  as  a  boy  I  read 
my  first  history  of  the  Bible — a  book  that  was  to  exert  so 
paramount  an  influence  on  the  studies  and  thoughts  of  my 
after  life — I  asked  myself,  "In  what  respect  does  my  faith 
to-day  differ  from  that  which  I  held  three  score  years  ago"! 
I  had  then,  as  Pasteur  once  said  of  himself  when  at  the 


368  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

zenith  of  his  fame  and  mental  vigor,  the  faith  of  a  Breton 
peasant."  Since  that  far-oif  time  when  I  delighted  to  pic- 
ture the  glories  of  Nineveh  and  Babylon  and  dwell  on  the 
famous  campaigns  and  victories,  the  superb  palaces  and 
entertainments  of  Sennacherib  and  Assuerus  and  Nebu- 
chadnezzar, I  have  striven  to  keep  abreast  with  the  intellec- 
tual movement  of  my  time  and,  in  so  doing,  I  have  never 
found  anything  in  any  of  the  new  sciences  that  could  by  any 
legitimate  interpretation  be  construed  as  being  at  variance 
with  the  teachings  of  the  religion  of  my  boyhood.  We  now 
know  incomparably  more  about  the  history,  the  social  and 
economic  condition  of  the  ancient  Assyrians  and  Baby- 
lonians than  we  did  before  the  explorer  brought  to  light 
the  literary  treasures  of  Nippur,  Telloh,  Abu-Habba,  and 
Nineveh;  but  we  have  discovered  nothing  which  is  com- 
petent to  discredit  any  of  the  eternal  verities  on  which  our 
faith  is  founded.  The  higher  criticism  may,  indeed,  cause 
us  to  modify  some  of  our  views  regarding  literary  or  tex- 
tual problems,  but  as  to  the  basal  truths  of  Scripture,  they 
stand  absolutely  in  all  their  divine  immutability  untouched 
and  absolutely  unassailable.  It  was,  indeed,  with  a  feeling 
of  joy  and  gratitude  that  I  could,  sixty  years  after  my  first 
acquaintance  with  Nineveh,  feel,  while  contemplating  the 
ruins  of  the  famous  city,  that  there  was  still  in  my  soul 
nothing  changed  of  that  faith  of  a  Breton  peasant — a  faith 
which,  as  it  was  my  most  precious  inheritance  in  early 
youth,  has  ever  continued  to  be  my  greatest  consolation 
from  then  to  beyond  the  Scriptural  age  of  three  score  years 
and  ten. 

That  the  discoveries  at  Nineveh  or  elsewhere  should  ever 
prove  to  be  in  conflict  with  revealed  truth,  has  to  me  never 
seemed  possible.    How  could  they  be  ?    Science  and  religion 


2B  A  few  years  before  his  death,  when  presiding  at  the  commencement  exer- 
cises of  the  College  of  Dole,  in  the  Department  of  the  Jura  in  which  he  was 
born  and  brought  up,  Pasteur  told  his  youthful  audience:  "When  one  has 
studied  much,  one  comes  back  to  the  faith  of  a  Breton  peasant;  as  to  myself, 
had  I  studied  more  I  should  have  the  faith  of  a  Breton  peasant-woman."  The 
^ve  Maria,  February  14,  1920. 


NINEVEH  AND  ITS  WONDERS  369 

belong  to  entirely  different  spheres  of  thought.  They  are 
as  far  separated  from  each  other  as  are  the  theories  of 
electricity,  of  the  constitution  of  matter,  of  the  origin 
of  species,  and  of  universal  gravitation  from  the  doctrines 
of  creation,  redemption.  Providence,  sanctification.  For 
this  reason  I  can  now  repeat  as  unreservedly  as  I  did  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago  that  **I  am  as  firmly  convinced 
as  I  can  be  of  anything,  that  God  is  the  Lord  of  science, 
that  science  is  the  handmaid  of  religion,  that  the  two,  speak- 
ing of  the  same  Author,  must  voice  the  same  testimony,  and 
that  this  testimony  must  be  not  only  unequivocally  true  but 
also  unequivocally  one."^' 

When,  therefore,  the  eminent  Assyriologist,  Friedrich 
Delitzsch,  tells  us  that  "the  conviction  is  becoming  more 
general  that  it  is  the  results  of  the  excavations  in  Baby- 
lonia and  Assyria  in  particular,  that  are  destined  to  inaugu- 
rate a  new  epoch  as  regards  both  the  way  in  which  we  must 
understand  the  Old  Testament  and  the  estimate  we  must 
form  of  it, "  ^^  we  must  tell  him  that  our  viewpoint  will  be 
unchanged  in  all  essential  matters  and  that,  whatever  may 
be  the  future  discoveries  of  Assyriologists,  all  of  them  will 
eventually  be  harmonized  with  the  Bible  and  with  the  funda- 
mental doctrines  of  the  Church  just  as  science  and  religion 
have  always  been  reconciled  with  each  other  from  the  days 
of  Gregory  of  Nyssa  and  Augustine  of  Hippo  to  those  of 
Bossuet  of  Meaux  and  Wiseman  of  Westminster. 

20  Bible,  Science  and  Faith,  p.  314,  315  (Baltimore,  1895).    Cf.  also  Evolu- 
tion and  Dogma,  Chap.  VIII  (by  J.  A.  Zahm,  Chicago,  1896). 
27  Babel  und  Bihel,  p.  4  (Leipzig,  1903). 


CHAPTER  XV 
FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGRIS  ON  A  KELEK 

When  the  breeze  of  a  joyful  dawn  blew  free 

In  the  silken  sail  of  infancy, 

The  tide  of  time  flow'd  back  with  me, 

The  forward- flowing  tide  of  time; 

And  many  a  sheeny  summer-morn, 

Adown  the  Tigris  I  was  borne, 

By  Bagdad's  shines  of  fretted  gold, 

High^walled  gardens  green  and  old. 

Tennyson. — "Recollections  of  the  Arabian  Nights." 

The  first  thing  we  did  on  arriving  at  Mosul — even  before 
we  visited  any  of  the  places  of  interest  in  the  city — ^was  to 
make  arrangements  for  our  transportation  to  Bagdad. 
Had  it  not  been  for  the  late  World  War,  the  Bagdad  Railway 
would  have  been  completed  to  the  famed  city  of  Harun-al- 
Rashid  and  we  could  then  have  made  the  journey  from 
Mosul  to  Bagdad  in  a  luxuriously  upholstered  car  or  in  the 
latest  type  of  wagon-lit  accompanied  by  a  well-supplied  and 
well-manned  wagon-restaurant.  In  the  absence  of  these 
we  might,  had  we  sought  for  one,  have  found  an  aviator 
who  would  have  taken  us  to  our  destination  in  an  aeroplane, 
for  both  aviators  and  aeroplanes  were  numerous  in  this 
vicinity  during  the  war  and  there  was  reason  to  believe 
that  there  were  still  here  both  flying  machines  and  pilots. 

But  we  were  not  looking  either  for  luxury  or  rapidity  of 
transportation.  Even  if  they  had  been  at  our  disposal  we 
should  not  have  availed  ourselves  of  these  twentieth- 
century  comforts  and  time-saving  devices  by  which  our 
western  world  sets  such  store.  We  had  no  desire  to  fly 
at  express-train  speed  through  the  historic  valley  of  the 
Tigris  even  if  we  had  had  at  our  disposition  all  the  luxuries 
and  conveniences  of  a  railway  president 's  private  car.    We 

370 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGRIS  371 

wished  to  study  the  country  and  the  people  and  we  desired 
to  do  so  at  our  leisure.    - 

The  usual  way  to  make  the  journey  from  Mosul  to  Bag- 
dad is  by  land.  Some  make  it  on  horseback,  but  the  major- 
ity elect  to  perform  it  on  the  back  of  an  Arabian  or  a  Bac- 
trian  camel.  A  few,  however,  prefer  to  entrust  themselves 
to  the  capricious  waters  of  the  tortuous  Tigris.  This  route 
requires  more  time  and  offers,  besides,  a  little  spice  of 
adventure.  Both  of  these  facts  appealed  to  us  and  we 
decided — ^without  hesitation — that  our  journey  to  the  city 
of  the  Thousand  and  One  Nights  should  be  by  the  longest 
and  the  slowest  and,  as  we  were  assured,  the  most  ven- 
turesome way. 

We  chose  also  to  go  by  the  Tigris  because  I  had  always 
been  specially  fond  of  river  travel.  It  has  been  my  good 
fortune  to  navigate  from  source  to  mouth  or  from  mouth 
to  source  many  of  the  longest  rivers  of  the  world,  and  I  was 
grateful  for  the  opportunity  to  spend  a  week  or  more  on 
one  of  the  largest  rivers  of  western  Asia  and  one  of  the 
most  famous  in  history.  Another  reason  for  choosing  this 
route  was  the  peculiar  age-old  craft  that  was  to  carry  us  to 
the  famed  capital  of  the  Caliphs. 

It  was  not  a  boat  nor  anything  that  even  remotely  resem- 
bled one.  It  was  a  peculiar  kind  of  a  raft  which  has  been 
in  use  on  the  Tigris  since  the  time  of  the  early  Assyrian 
kings,  and  which,  notwithstanding  all  our  modern  improve- 
ments, still  holds  its  own  here  not  only  for  conveying  the 
traveler  to  his  destination  but  also  for  carrying  freight  as 
well. 

The  raft  in  question  is  called  a  kelek.  It  is  composed  of 
a  large  number  of  inflated  goat  or  sheep  skins  which  are 
kept  united  by  reeds.  Over  these  is  laid  a  framework 
made  of  saplings  or  scantlinglike  timbers  which  are  held 
together  by  twigs  or  lianas.  No  nails  or  screws  whatever 
are  used.  If  the  skins  be  continually  kept  moist  and  prop- 
erly inflated,  the  framework  of  the  kelek  will  always  remain 
above  water,  even  when  bearing  a  considerable  load. 


372  FKOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Thanks  to  our  good  Dominican  hosts,  the  work  of  con- 
structing our  kelek  was  specially  expedited  after  the  work- 
men knew  exactly  the  size  and  kind  of  craft  we  desired. 
And  to  our  great  joy  it  was  ready  for  us  as  soon  as  we  were 
prepared  to  start  on  our  journey  down  the  river.  It  was 
fifteen  by  twenty  feet  in  dimensions  and  counted  a  hundred 
and  seventy-five  inflated  skins.  In  the  middle  of  the  kelek 
we  had  a  good-sized  tent  in  which  we  had  two  light  cots, 
three  light  folding  chairs,  a  folding  writing  table,  ten  pock- 
ets, and  other  things  which  occupy  little  space  but  which 
we  found  by  previous  experience  contributed  immensely 
to  the  convenience  and  comfort  of  the  traveler  whether  on 
land  or  water.  Most  of  our  luggage,  as  well  as  our  pro- 
visions, was  left  outside  of  the  tent  in  care  of  our  good  and 
faithful  Simoun,  a  middle-aged  Chaldean  who  had  been 
specially  recommended  to  us  by  our  Dominican  friends  and 
who  was  guaranteed  to  give  us  devoted  and  intelligent  serv- 
ice. He  took  charge  of  everything  on  the  kelek  and  looked 
after  the  kelekgis — rowers — cook,  and  the  commissary 
department  as  well  as  our  comfort  and  pleasure.  Certain 
Greeks  and  Armenians  had  applied  for  the  position  which 
we  gave  to  Simoun,  but  our  experience  with  their  country- 
men had  been  such  that  we  had  resolved  to  entrust  our- 
selves thenceforth  to  the  much  abused  and  little-understood 
Chaldean.  For  honesty,  reliability,  devotedness,  a  Chris- 
tian Chaldean,  like  an  Osmanli  Turk  from  the  interior  of 
Anatolia,  is,  in  any  fiduciary  capacity,  absolutely  unsur- 
passed. 

When  we  actually  found  ourselves  on  our  kelek,  ready  to 
depart  for  Bagdad,  we  felt  as  happy  as  schoolboys  starting 
on  a  vacation.  It  meant  at  least  a  week  of  absolute  rest — 
a  rest  which,  after  the  strenuous  lives  we  had  been  leading 
since  we  left  Constantinople,  was  most  welcome. 

Besides  the  good  fathers  of  St.  Dominic,  whose  kindness 
during  our  sojourn  in  Mosul  we  can  never  forget,  a  num- 
ber of  the  people  of  the  city  whom  we  had  learned  to  know 
were  at  the  point  of  embarkation  to  bid  us  Godspeed.    We 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGRIS  373 

were  specially  touched  by  the  presence  of  some  school  chil- 
dren with  whom,  from  having  frequently  met  them,  we  were 
on  the  friendliest  terms.  ** Children,"  said  I  to  my  com- 
panion, ''are  the  same  the  world  over.  Treat  them  kindly 
and  they  will  do  anything  for  you."  I  was  then  specially 
thinking  of  the  little  Indian  children  whom  I  had  often 
met  in  the  wilds  of  South  America,  and  who,  although  they 
had  never  come  into  contact  with  a  white  man  before,  be- 
came, after  a  little  act  of  kindness,  my  devoted  friends  and 
wished  to  be  always  near  me.  The  Turkish  children  of 
Anatolia,  the  little  Arabs  of  Syria,  and  the  Chaldeans  of 
Mesopotamia  are,  when  kindly  treated,  just  as  loving  and 
as  lovable  as  the  youthful  redskins  of  the  broad  wilder- 
nesses of  Brazil  and  Peru. 

It  was  nearly  eleven  o'clock  when  we  finally  got  under 
way.  The  last  words  I  heard  from  my  friends  on  the  shore 
were  those  of  a  charming  Osmanli  youth  who  is  a  clarion 
voice  bade  us  an  affectionate  good-bye  in  the  touching  Turk- 
ish words  Allaha-ismarladiq — ^we  have  commended  you  to 
God.  Again  how  like  the  fond  adios  of  the  good  children  of 
the  South  American  hinterland  whose  parting  words  Vaya 
listed  con  Dios! — ^may  you  go  with  God — so  often  cheered 
our  souls  during  our  long  journeys  over  the  snow-clad  sum- 
mits of  the  Andes  or  through  the  trackless  forests  of  the 
Amazon  and  the  Orinoco. 

We  started  on  our  journey  down  the  Tigris  under  a  cloud- 
less sky.  During  the  early  morning  it  had  been  quite  chilly, 
but,  as  the  sun  rose  in  the  heavens,  the  atmosphere  became 
as  balmy  as  that  of  a  morning  in  May.  All  augured  a  pleas- 
ant voyage ;  and  no  sooner  had  the  minarets  of  Mosul  and 
Nebi  Yunus  vanished  from  our  sight  than  we  proceeded  to 
give  the  interior  of  our  tent  as  homelike  an  appearance  as 
circumstances  would  permit.  Simoun  had  decked  the  open- 
ing of  the  tent  with  some  flowers  that  our  kind  friends  had 
brought  us.  On  our  writing  table  we  placed  some  of  our 
favorite  books.    Among  these  was  a  small  copy  in  India 


374  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

paper  of  the  Bible  which  was  in  constant  use  during  our 
journey  in  the  Orient.  Another  was  a  small  pocket  edition 
of  the  Divina  Commedia  which,  for  years,  had  been  my 
companion  to  the  most  distant  parts  of  the  world.  There 
were  also  small  editions  of  the  Soliloquia  of  St.  Augustine 
and  of  the  select  works  of  St.  Teresa.  I  took  these  last  two 
books  with  me  because  they,  like  Dante's  immortal  poem, 
had  been  old  and  cherished  friends  in  other  lands  and  be- 
cause they  seemed  peculiarly  appropriate  for  such  a  jour- 
ney as  the  one  we  were  then  undertaking.  To  these  were 
added  copies  of  Xenophon's  Anabasis,  Arrian's  Anabasis 
of  Alexander,  and  The  Oxford  Book  of  English  Verse.  The 
other  books  I  had  brought  with  me  I  left  in  my  trunk,  as  I 
expected  to  spend  most  of  my  time  on  our  way  down  the 
river  in  contemplation  of  the  many  objects  of  interest  with 
which  both  banks  were  everywhere  studded. 

A  great  part  of  the  land  in  the  vicinity  of  Mosul  is  under 
cultivation.  Wheat  and  barley  are  grown  in  abundance. 
Hemp  is  also  cultivated  but  more  attention  is  given  to  cot- 
ton, especially  along  the  banks  and  on  the  islands  which 
diversify  the  river.  Melons  seem  to  be  as  popular  along 
the  Tigris  as  they  are  among  our  dusky  population  south  of 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line. 

Much  of  the  land  in  this  region  is  very  fertile  and,  if  irri- 
gated as  it  was  three  thousand  years  ago,  would  yield  har- 
vests as  extraordinary  as  ever  in  the  past.  But  the  count- 
less vicissitudes,  consequent  on  wars  innumerable  and  on 
inefficient  government,  through  which  this  ill-fated  region 
has  passed  since  the  fall  of  Nineveh,  have  not  been  condu- 
cive to  the  development  of  agriculture  nor  to  the  economic 
growth  of  what  was  once  the  wealthiest  country  of  Western 
Asia. 

I  have  been  on  many  rivers  but  I  have  never  found  so 
much  genuine  intellectual  pleasure  on  any  of  them  as  on 
the  Tigris.  It  has  not,  indeed,  the  natural  beauties  of  the 
Hudson  or  the  Columbia,  of  the  Rhine  or  the  Danube ;  but 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGRIS  375 

it  has  something  that  appealed  to  me  far  more  than  the 
attractions  for  which  these  famous  waterways  of  America 
and  Europe  are  so  justly  celebrated.  Charged  with  the 
myths  and  the  legends,  the  traditions  and  the  historical 
associations  of  six  millennia,  it  offers  to  the  thoughtful 
student  subjects  for  consideration  that  cannot  be  found 
elsewhere. 

In  contemplating  the  old  classic  streams  of  Greece  and 
Italy,  the  Illisus,  the  Peneus,  the  Tibur,  the  Po — I  always 
experience  a  kind  of  admiration  bordering  on  respect.  I 
am  impressed  not  by  the  volume  of  water  which  they  carry 
to  the  sea  but  by  their  picturesqueness,  by  the  atmosphere 
of  romance  that  hangs  over  them  and  by  the  venerable 
history  in  which  they  all  rejoice.  But  when  I  gazed  on  the 
Tigris  and  its  ruin-fringed  banks,  a  surge  of  emotion  per- 
vaded my  entire  being  and  I  was  thrilled  as  by  few  other 
objects  on  earth.  Under  the  name  Hiddikel  it  appears  as 
one  of  the  rivers  of  Eden.  To  the  prophet  Daniel,  who 
crossed  it  in  his  journeys  to  and  from  Susa,  it  was  **The 
Great  River, ' '  ^  and  on  its  banks  he  had  some  of  his  most 
remarkable  visions.  It  carried  on  its  waters  the  greatest 
fleet  ever  built  by  an  Assyrian  potentate.  This  was  when 
in  694  B.  C,  Sennacherib  inaugurated  his  campaign  of 
devastation  in  Babylonia  and  when,  with  the  aid  of  seafar- 
ing men  from  Cyprus  and  Phoenicia,  he  floated  his  boats  to 
the  lower  Tigris  and  thence  transported  them  to  the  Eu- 
phrates. It  was  during  this  ruthless  war  that  he  applied 
the  torch  to  the  great  city  of  Babylon  and  left  it  with  its 
magnificent  temples  and  palaces  and  its  splendid  works  of 
art — the  result  of  long  centuries  of  labor — a  vast,  smolder- 
ing ruin.  It  was  along  the  Tigris  that  Xenophon  and  his 
heroic  Ten  Thousand  returned  homewards  after  the  event- 
ful battle  of  Cunaxa.  This  famous  retreat  revealed  to  the 
Greeks  the  weakness  of  the  vast  Persian  Empire  and  led 
to  its  overthrow  by  Alexander  the  Great  and  to  "the  accom- 
plishment of  the  promises  of  God,  as  made  in  the  prophe- 

1 A  name  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  also  applied  to  the  Euphrates. 


376  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

cies  of  Daniel,  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  third  of  the 
great  empires  which  were  to  precede  the  coming  of  the 
Savior  of  mankind. ' '  ^ 

As  the  evening  sun  was  disappearing  behind  a  gorgeous 
gold  and  crimson  mountain  range  of  cumulous  clouds,  we 
heard,  a  short  distance  ahead  of  us,  the  roaring  of  the 
Zikr  ul  Aawaze,  a  noted  cataract  about  twenty  miles  below 
Mosul  and  we  then  knew  that  we  were  near  the  celebrated 
ruins  of  Nimroud.  These  ruins  formerly  stood  on  the  left 
bank  of  the  Tigris,  but,  owing  to  a  shifting  of  the  river's 
channel  towards  the  west,  are  now  about  two  miles  inland. 

As  we  desired  to  visit  the  great  tell  of  Nimroud  the  follow- 
ing day,  we  here  tied  up  our  kelek  for  the  night.  Early  the 
next  morning  we  were  on  our  way  to  the  ruins  which,  in 
the  annals  of  Assyrian  archaeology,  are  almost  as  famous 
as  those  of  Kuyunjik  and  Khorsabad.  Here  Layard  un- 
earthed some  of  the  most  prized  treasures  in  the  Assyrian 
department  of  the  British  Museum  and  here,  there  are 
reasons  to  believe,  are  still  buried  countless  other  treasures 
equally  valuable. 

The  ruins  of  Nimroud  occupy  the  site  of  Calah  mentioned 
in  Genesis  as  having  been  built  by  Assur,  the  founder  of 
Nineveh.  But  the  people  living  near  by  are  convinced  that 
it  was  built  by  Nimrod,  ''the  mighty  hunter  before  the 
Lord,"  and  that  it  was  his  favorite  place  of  residence. 
Assyriologists,  however,  declare  that  it  was  built  by  Salma- 
nassar  I  who  made  it  the  capital  of  Assyria,  a  dignity 
which  it  retained  until  the  time  of  Sargon  who  removed  his 
residence  to  the  north  of  Nineveh  where  lie  the  ruins  of 
Khorsabad. 

The  general  aspect  of  the  ruins  of  Nimroud  is  not  unlike 
that  of  Nineveh.  The  ruins  constitute  a  platform  in  the  form 
of  a  parallelogram  about  five  hundred  feet  in  width  and  a 
thousand  in  length.    At  the  northwest  corner  of  this  eleva- 

2  Cf.  R.  I.  Wilberforce  in  The  Five  Empires,  Chaps.  XV,  XVIII  (London, 
1862). 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGEIS  377 

tion  is  a  conical  tower  whose  height,  according  to  recent 
measurements,  is  one  hundred  and  ten  feet  above  the  sur- 
rounding plain.  This  is  all  that  now  remains  of  the  impos- 
ing sikurat,  or  stage  tower,  that  once  dominated  the  great 
capital  of  Salmanassar. 

In  order  to  get  a  good  view  of  the  ruins,  as  well  as  of  the 
surrounding  country,  we  lost  no  time  in  reaching  the  sum- 
mit of  the  tower.  From  its  crest  we  had  a  view  as  interest- 
ing as  it  was  replete  with  historic  reminiscences.  Our  vision 
ranged  over  a  region  in  which  were  enacted  some  of  the 
most  memorable  events  of  Mesopotamia  and  Persia.  Down 
the  Tigris  passed  the  famous  fleets  of  Trajan  and  Sen- 
nacherib, and  along  its  bank  marched  the  vast  armies  of 
Esarhaddon,  Cyaxares,  and  Nabopolassar.  Within  gunshot 
were  the  emerald  waters  of  the  Great  Zab  rushing  to  join 
the  tawny  current  of  the  Tigris.  On  its  banks  the  Persian 
satrap,  Tissaphernes,  in  violation  of  a  solemn  compact, 
treacherously  seized  Clearchus  and  several  of  his  generals 
and  sent  them  to  Artaxerxes,  who  ordered  them  to  be 
beheaded.  It  was  here  that  Xenophon  assumed  command 
of  the  memorable  expedition  of  the  Ten  Thousand — an 
expedition  that  the  distinguished  English  geographer,  Ren- 
nell,  has  declared  was  **the  most  splendid  of  all  the  mili- 
tary events  that  have  been  recorded  in  ancient  history.** 
Eastward  was  the  famous  battlefield  of  Arbela,  where  "the 
greatest  battle  in  the  record  of  the  ancient  world  had  been 
fought;  where  the  issue  of  centuries  had  struck  their  bal- 
ance in  a  day ;  where  the  channel  of  history  for  a  thousand 
years  had  been  opened  with  a  flying  wedge  " ; '  where  Alex- 
ander the  Great  had  completed  the  work  which  was  begun 
by  his  countrymen  under  Xenophon  when  they  made  the 
discovery  of  the  innate  weakness  of  the  Persian  colossus 
and  thus  prepared  the  public  opinion  of  Greece  for  the 
great  campaign  against  the  ancient  Persian  Empire  which 
once  menaced  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  with  subjection 

s  Alexander  the  Great,  p.  368  (by  B.  I.  Wheeler,  New  York,  1900). 


378  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

but  which  **was  irrevocably  crushed  when  Alexander  had 
won  his  crowning  victory  of  Arbela."  * 

After  exploring  the  ruins  of  Nimroud,  we  returned  to  our 
kelek  which,  with  much  creaking  and  quivering,  was  soon 
wrestling  with  the  boiling  waters  of  the  Zikr  ul  Aawaze. 
This  is  a  dam  or  dyke  built  across  the  river  and  during  low 
water  rises  a  foot  or  more  above  the  surface.  It  produces 
quite  a  cataract  but  our  kelekgi  conducted  our  frail  craft 
over  its  seething  waters  without  any  diflBculty.  Like  other 
remarkable  works  in  this  neighborhood  this  dam — some 
say  it  was  a  bridge — is  attributed  by  the  inhabitants  to 
Nimrod.  The  noted  French  traveler,  Tavernier,  tells  us 
that  when  he  passed  down  the  Tigris,  the  Zikr  ul  Aawaze 
formed  a  waterfall  twenty-six  feet  high.  He  assures  us, 
however,  that  his  kelek  went  over  this  waterfall  without 
mishap."  One  may  be  permitted  to  suspect  that  in  this 
statement  he  was  striving,  in  recounting  travelers'  tales, 
to  emulate  his  mythical  predecessor.  Sir  John  Mandeville. 

About  fifty  miles  to  the  south  of  Nimroud,  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  Tigris,  is  the  great  mound  of  Kalah  Sherghat 
over  which,  until  a  few  years  ago,  hung  as  deep  a  mystery 
as  that  which  so  long  enveloped  the  imposing  tells  of  Nim- 
roud and  Khorsabad.  To  the  Turks,  in  their  ignorance,  it 
was  but  a  fort  made  of  clay — Toprak  Kale.  Even  so  late 
as  1900  a  distinguished  German  traveler  was  unaware  that 
the  wonderful  tell  of  Kalah  Sherghat,  which  so  excited 
his  admiration,  covered  the  remains  of  one  of  the  most 
noted  cities  of  Assyria." 

*  Creasy 's  Decisive  Battles  of  the  World,  p.  79  (New  York,  1899). 

It  was  at  Arbela,  where  was  to  be  settled  once  for  all  the  question  of  world 
Bupremacy,  that  Alexander,  when  counseled  by  his  generals  to  make  a  night 
attack  on  Darius,  gave  the  famous  answer  ov  KXiirTw  riiv  pUtjv — I  steal  no 
victory — words  that  were  his  motto  during  his  eventful  and  brilliant  career. 

6  Voyages  en  Turquie,  en  Perse  et  aux  Indes,  Vol  I,  p.  185   (Paris,  1677). 

6  Die  Beudentung  des  heutigen  Namen's  Kal  'at  Schergat  ist  bis  jetzt  un- 
aufgekiart  geblieben  und  durfte  vielleicht  eine  Altassyrische  Reminiscenz 
bergen.  Vom  Mittelmer  zum  Persischen  Golf.  Vol.  II,  p.  210  (by  M.  von  Op- 
penheim,  Berlin,  1900).  His  countryman.  Baron  Thielmann,  writing  of  the 
same  ruins  a  quarter  of  a  century  earlier,  declares:  "This  great  field  of  ruin 
with  its  pyramid  looks  truly  venerable,  but  science  has  as  yet  made  no  dis- 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGRIS  379 

It  was  indeed  only  after  Dr.  Robert  Koldewey  and  Dr. 
"Walter  Andrae,  the  eminent  explorers  of  the  German  Orient 
Society,  had,  in  1903,  begun  their  exhaustive  excavations  at 
Kalah  Sherghat  that  it  was  demonstrated  that  its  imposing 
ruins  were  none  other  than  those  of  Assur,  the  first  capital 
of  ancient  Assyria.  It  was  here  that  Asur,  the  national 
god  of  Assyria,  had  his  favorite  sanctuary — a  god  that  was 
not  only  supreme  over  all  the  gods  of  the  Babylonian  pan- 
theon but  was  also  their  lord  and  master,  **the  King  above 
all  gods/'  ^    King  Sennacherib  addresses  him  as 

King  of  the  totality  of  the  gods,  his  own  creation,  father 
of  the  gods. 

Whose  power  is  unfolded  in  the  deep,  king  of  heaven  and 
earth,  lord  of  all  gods.* 

As  the  national  deity  of  the  greatest  military  power  of 
the  ancient  world,  Asur  was  preeminently  a  martial  god. 
For,  as  is  evinced  by  cuneiform  inscriptions,  it  is  "by  the 
might  of  Asur"  that  the  nation's  enemies  are  vanquished, 
that  towns  and  cities  are  razed,  that  other  lands  are  brought 
under  the  dominion  of  the  invincible  Kings  of  Assyria. 

Although  I  had  read  with  exceeding  interest,  shortly 
after  their  publication,  Andrae 's  superbly  illustrated  re- 
ports of  his  careful  and  methodical  excavations  at  Kalah 
Sherghat,  I  was  not  fully  prepared  for  the  wonderful  ruins 
which  greeted  my  vision  when  I  first  surveyed  them  from 
one  of  the  imposing  zigurats  of  the  great  temple  of  Anu 
and  Adad,  which  was  rebuilt  by  Salmanassar  III,  nearly 
nine  centuries  before  our  era.'  As  reconstructed  by  Andras 
this  temple  was,  in  its  day,  one  of  the  architectural  won- 
ders of  western  Asia.     But  the  city  of  Assur  was  more 

coveries  here  which  could  help  ua  solve  the  mystery  of  this  remnant  of  an 
ancient  era."  Journey  in  the  Caucasus,  Persia  and  Turkey  in  Asia,  Vol.  II, 
p.  136  (London,  1875). 

7  Cf.  Sayce  Lectures  on  the  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion  as  Illustrated 
by  the  Religion  of  the  Ancient  Babylonians,  p.  122  (London,  1898). 

8  See  Jastrow,  op.  cit.,  p.  229. 

»  See  W.  Andrse's  Der  Anu-Adad-Tempel  in  Assur  (Leipsic,  1909) ;  and  hif 
Die  Festungswerke  von  Assur  (Leipsic,  1913). 


380  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

than  a  thousand  years  old  when  Salmanassar  placed  in  the 
great  temple  enclosure  a  record  of  his  work  on  it  and  an 
account  of  its  completion.  For  fully  twenty  centuries,  B.  C, 
Assyria,  from  Assur  as  a  center,  had  begun  to  extend  her 
dominions  northwards  and  to  lay  the  foundations  of  that 
mighty  empire  which  was  for  so  many  generations  the 
admiration  and  the  dread  of  the  ancient  world. 

Besides  uncovering  the  temples  and  palaces  of  Assur, 
Dr.  Andras  and  his  colleagues  unearthed  a  part  of  its  resi- 
dential quarter.  In  so  doing  they  made  discoveries  of  the 
greatest  interest  regarding  the  domestic  life  of  its  inhab- 
itants and  their  care  for  the  sanitary  condition  of  their 
homes.  Every  house,  however  small,  had  suitable  sewer 
connections,  while  all  the  larger  homes  had  rooms  for 
domestics  and  dependents. 

But  to  many  students  of  Assyriology  the  most  notable 
discovery  made  here  by  the  G-erman  expedition  took  place 
not  in  the  temples  and  palaces  of  the  venerable  city  but 
in  the  space  between  its  interior  and  exterior  walls.  This 
consisted  in  unearthing  a  large  number  of  tombs  and  nearly 
a  hundred  and  fifty  stelae,  some  of  which  were  made  of  sand- 
stone and  limestone,  while  others  were  fashioned  out  of 
basalt  and  alabaster.  From  the  inscriptions  on  these  stelae 
it  was  evident  that  no  fewer  than  thirty-five  of  them  were 
erected  to  the  memory  of  rulers  of  Assyria. 

Among  the  royal  tombs  were  those  of  Ashbelkala,  Ash- 
urnasirpal  III,  and  Shamsi-Adad  V.  The  massive  sarcoph- 
agus of  the  first-named  king  was  -found  to  be  in  almost 
perfect  condition. 

Commenting  on  this  remarkable  find  Dr.  Rogers  writes : 

This  discovery  of  these  royal  tombs  appeals  most  strongly 
to  the  imagination.  Before  this,  Assyriology  had  seemed 
so  poor  in  comparison  with  Egyptology  which  has  from 
the  beginning  been  able  to  point  to  its  long  series  of  royal 
tombs,  nay,  even  to  the  mummied  remains  of  the  greatest  of 
Egyptian  Kings.  There  is  no  probability  that  Assyrian 
discoveries  will  ever  be  able  to  match  these,  but  the  reproach 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGRIS  381 

that  neither  Assyria  nor  Babylonia  had  even  one  royal 
tomb  has  been  taken  away,^** 

More  interesting  far  than  any  of  the  royal  tombs  referred 
to  is  one  of  the  stelas  that  were  uncovered  in  the  same  place. 
According  to  the  inscription  on  it  the  discovery  of  this 
monument  was  really  startling  in  its  import  and  marked  a 
most  notable  event  in  the  romance  of  archaeology.  The 
legend  which  this  stone  pillar  bears  tells  ns  that  it  is : 

The  stela  of  Sammuramat 

The  woman  of  the  palace  (that  is,  the  consort  of  Shamsi- 
Adad,) 

The  King  of  the  world,  King  of  Assyria, 

The  mother  of  Adadnirari 

The  King  of  the  world,  King  of  Assyria, 

The  daughter-in-law  of  Salmanassar 

The  king  of  the  four  quarters  of  the  earth." 

But  who  was  Sammuramat?  Surprising  as  it  may  seem, 
she  was,  as  scholars  now  concede,  none  other  than  Semi- 
ramis,  the  famous  legendary  queen  of  Assyria. 

What  a  marvelous  discovery!  What  a  vindication  of 
long  suppressed  truth!  What  an  unexpected  substitution 
of  reality  for  fiction,  of  fact  for  fancy,  of  authentic  history 
for  myth  -and  legend ! 

To  no  other  woman  of  antiquity  have  there  been  attrib- 
uted so  many  brilliant  achievements  as  to  Semiramis.  Nor 
has  any  one  of  her  sex  during  the  last  two  thousand  years 
and  more,  occupied  a  more  conspicuous  position  in  myth 
and  legend,  song  and  story. 

From  the  time  of  Ctesias,  the  physician  of  Artaxerxes 
Mnemon,  until  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century,  there  was 
no  question  about  the  main  facts  of  her  marvelous  career. 
During  all  this  time  she  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  most 
notable  rulers  of  antiquity—as  a  queen  of  consummate 


10  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  328.  .     ,     ^  ,x       A   J        T   •     J      loiQi 

11  See  Die  Bteilenreien  in  Aaaur,  p.  ii  (by  Walter  Andra,  Leipaic,  1913). 


382  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

military  ability  and  exceptional  statesmanship;  as  a  ruler 
of  vaulting  ambition  and  as  a  conqueror  whose  dominions 
embraced  the  most  flourishing  regions  of  Asia  and  Africa. 
So  great  indeed  was  her  reputed  activity  and  genius  that 
Strabo  tells  us  tradition  attributed  to  her  all  the  most 
stupendous  works  along  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates  and 
even  those  in  distant  Iran."  Alexander  the  Great,  it  is 
said,  found  an  inscription  of  hers  on  the  frontier  of  Scythia, 
which  was  then  Considered  the  boundary  of  the  inhabited 
world.    In  this  inscription  the  famous  queen  declares : 

Nature  has  given  me  the  body  of  a  woman  but  my  achieve- 
ments have  made  me  the  equal  of  the  most  valiant  of  men. 
I  have  ruled  the  empire  of  Ninus  which  on  the  east  extends 
to  the  river  Hinamanes,  on  the  south  to  the  country  of 
incense  and  myrrh,  and  on  the  north  as  far  as  the  SacsB  and 
the  land  of  Sogdiana.  Before  me  no  Assyrian  had  seen  any 
of  the  seas ;  I  have  seen  four  of  them  which  were  so  distant 
that  no  one  had  ever  reached  them.  I  have  forced  rivers  to 
flow  where  I  wished  them  to,  and  I  have  wished  them  to 
flow  only  where  they  would  be  useful.  I  have  rendered  the 
sterile  earth  fecund  by  irrigating  them  with  these  rivers. 
I  have  erected  impregnable  fortresses.  With  iron  I  have 
made  roads  through  impassable  rocks.  I  have  constructed 
for  my  chariots  highways  through  places  which  the  wild 
beasts  themselves  had  never  traversed.  And  in  the  midst 
of  these  occupations  I  have  found  time  for  my  amusements 
and  my  pleasures.^^ 

Zenobia  and  Cleopatra  were  distinguished  for  their 
beauty,  their  genius,  and  the  brilliancy  of  their  achieve- 
ments, but,  according  to  the  testimony  of  Ctesias,  Diodorus 
Siculus,  and  other  ancient  historians,  they  were  completely 
eclipsed  by  the  wonder-working  queen  of  Assyria.  So  great, 

12  "Many  other  works  of  Semiramis,"  writes  Strabo,  "besides  those  of 
Babylon,  are  extant  in  almost  every  part  of  this  continent,  as,  for  example, 
earth-works  which  are  called  mounds  of  Semiramis,  walls  and  fortresses, 
aqueducts  and  cisterns  for  water,  stair-like  roads  over  mountains,  canals  com- 
municating with  rivers  and  lakes;  roads  and  bridges."  Oeography,  Bk.  XVI, 
Chap.  II. 

isPolysenus  Strategemeta,  VIII,  26. 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGEIS  383 

tradition  had  it,  were  her  abilities  as  a  sovereign  that  two 
thousand  years  after  her  time  the  most  eminent  female 
rulers  of  their  age  were  named  after  this  extraordinary- 
woman  who  had  so  impressed  her  personality  on  the  "West 
as  well  as  on  the  East.  Thus  it  is  that  Catherine  II  of 
Kussia,  who  was  almost  the  rival  of  Peter  the  Great,  is 
known  as  the  Semiramis  of  the  North,  while  the  same 
epithet  is  given  to  that  remarkable  sovereign,  Queen  Mar- 
garet de  Valdemar  of  Norway,  Sweden,  and  Denmark. 

But  when,  in  the  second  half  of  the  last  century.  Oriental- 
ists began  to  decipher  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  of  "West- 
ern Asia,  the  majority  of  them  soon  showed  a  marked  skep- 
ticism regarding  the  historical  character  of  the  renowned 
Assyrian  queen.  It  was  contended  that  there  was  no  men- 
tion of  her  name  in  the  Babylonian  records  during  the 
period  in  which  she  was  supposed  to  have  lived  and  that 
the  silence  of  these  records  respecting  a  ruler  who,  accord- 
ing to  ancient  writers,  played  so  important  a  role  in 
antiquity  was  conclusive  proof  that  she  never  existed.  It 
was  furthermore  asseverated  that  the  work  of  Ctesias, 
which  for  so  many  centuries  had  been  accepted  as  sober 
history,  was  no  more  than  a  romantic  narrative  which  the 
progress  of  Assyrian  research  had  completely  discredited. 
And  Semiramis,  it  was  further  averred,  was  not  a  woman 
of  flesh  and  blood  at  all  but  an  entirely  mythical  character, 
— merely  a  creation  of  Ctesias  and  having  no  existence 
outside  of  his  elaborate  romance  which  for  more  than  two 
thousand  years  passed  as  serious  history. 

But  scholars,  while  denying  that  Semiramis  was  the 
human  personage  she  was  so  long  believed  to  be,  were  un- 
willing to  concede  that  she  was  nothing  more  than  a  mere 
arbitrary  creation  of  the  fertile  imagination  of  a  Greek 
romancer  posing  as  a  historian.  The  assumption  that  she 
was  nothing  more  than  a  creature  of  fancy  would,  in  view 
of  her  conspicuous  position  in  the  ancient  world,  be  more 
difficult  of  acceptance  than  the  age-old  belief  that  she  was 


384  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

really,  as  so  long  considered,  the  great  queen  and  con- 
queror of  Western  Asia. 

If,  then,  she  was  neither  a  human  being  nor  a  mere  fig- 
ment of  the  imagination,  what  was  she?  Scholars,  and 
especially  Orientalists,  felt  the  necessity  of  finding  a  plaus- 
ible, if  not  a  satisfactory,  answer  to  this  question  which 
became  daily  more  and  more  insistent.  To  obtain  such  an 
answer  they  ransacked,  as  never  before,  oriental  history, 
mythology,  and  archaeology  and  with  results  which,  at  least 
to  themselves,  seemed  beyond  question. 

Semiramis  [declares  an  eminent  Orientalist]  is  not  a 
human  personage,  but  a  divinity  whom  legend,  as  so  often 
happens  in  similar  cases,  transports  into  the  domain  of 
human  affairs.  Diodorus  says  formally  that  she  was  adored 
as  a  goddess  and  declares  that  her  cult  had  two  principal 
seats,  Assyria  and  the  city  of  Ascalon  in  Philistia.  .  .  . 
That  she  was,  of  a  truth,  a  goddess  is  evinced  by  her  being 
the  daughter  of  Derceto  as  well  as  by  the  traditions  respect- 
ing her  birth  and  by  her  final  metamorphosis,  which  have 
all  a  distinctly  mythological  color.^* 

Another  distinguished  Orientalist  is  positive  that  "Semi- 
ramis was  the  name  not  of  a  human  queen  but  of  the  god- 
dess Istar  whose  legend  was  nationalized  by  the  Persian 
historians  and  their  Greek  followers."^'  **The  name  of 
Semiramis,"  he  will  have  it,  ''belongs  not  to  Babylonian 
history  but  to  Greek  Romance."^®  He  accentuates  this 
statement  when  he  asserts  that  Ctesias,  the  creator  of 
Semiramis,  who  is  only  the  Greek  Aphrodite,  based  his 
history  in  great  measure  on  Persian  annals  which  "like 
those  of  Firdusi  or  of  later  Arabian  writers  consisted  for 
the  most  part  of  mere  legendary  tales  and  rationalized 

'^*Cf.  La  Legende  de  Semiramis,  pp.  22,  23  (by  Francois  Lenormant),  in 
Mimoirea  de  VAcademie  Royale  des  Sciences,  des  Lettres  et  des  Beaux  Arts  de 
Belgique,  Tom.  XL  (1873). 

18  A.  H.  Sayce  in  Herodotos,  with  Notes,  Introductions  and  Appendices, 
p.  105  (London,  1883). 

18  Ibid.,  p.  303. 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGEIS  385 

myths,''  in  which  we  have  to  seek  "not  the  history  but 
the  mythology  of  the  Babylonians."  " 

Another  noted  scholar  writes  a  learned  paper  to  prove 
that  ''Semiramis  is  not  an  historical  queen  whose  legend 
was  enriched  in  later  times  with  elements  borrowed  from  a 
religious  myth,"  but  that  **she  is  primarily  a  goddess,  and 
becomes  a  quasi-historical  queen  only  by  virtues  of  that 
euhemerism  which  in  the  East  is  so  much  older  than  Euhe- 
merus."" 

For  several  decades  these  and  other  distinguished  schol- 
ars endeavored  to  account  for  the  origin  and  exploits  of 
Semiramis  in  a  way  that  would  relieve  them  from  the  neces- 
sity of  conceding  that  she  was  either  an  arbitrary  creation 
of  Ctesias  or,  as  historians  so  long  taught,  an  actual  Assyr- 
ian queen.  Insisting  that  the  character  of  Semiramis  is 
unmistakably  that  of  the  Semitic  Ishtar  or  Astarte,  some 
accounted  for  her  historical  character  by  assuming  that 
she  was  but  an  eastern  myth  translated  into  ''the  semblance 
of  a  history  that  would  be  creditable  to  the  Greeks."  Oth- 
ers maintained  that  she  was  the  daughter  of  the  fish-goddess 
Derceto,  while  still  others  quite  as  vigorously  contended 
that  "the  legend  of  Semiramis  originated  in  Lydia," 
whence  it  found  its  way  to  Persia  where  Persian  imagina- 
tion transformed  the  daughter  of  a  fish-goddess  into  a 
Babylonian  queen.  Then  again  it  was  asserted  that  the 
Semiramis  legend  arose  from  the  commingling  of  exag- 
gerated accounts  of  a  royal  Assyrian  lady  named  Sam- 
murat  and  certain  myths  regarding  the  Assyro-Babylonian 
Ishtar  and  the  Canaanite  Astoreth.  To  this  Semiramis, 
as  to  the  great  Sesostris  of  Egypt,  the  Greeks  in  course  of 
time  assigned  most  of  the  stupendous  works  in  Asia  Minor 
which  were  of  Hittite  or  Assyrian  origin.  Smith,  as  the 
result  of  an  exhaustive  investigation,  comes  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  "Semiramis  is  a  name  and  form  of  Astarte  and 

i7Tbid..p.  362. 

18  Mr.  Rohertson  Smith  in  The  English  Historical  Review,  Vol.  II,  p.  305, 
April,  1887. 


386  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

the  story  of  her  conquests  in  Upper  Asia  is  a  translation 
into  the  language  of  political  history  of  the  diffusion  and 
victories  of  her  worship  in  that  region."^' 

But  while  Orientalists  were  cudgeling  their  brains  in  the 
vain  endeavor  to  solve  the  problem  on  which  they  had 
wasted  so  much  midnight  oil,  Dr.  Andrse  and  his  associates 
of  the  Deutsche  Orient-Gesellschaft  unexpectedly  made 
their  astounding  discovery  among  the  ruins  of  Assur.  By 
a  single  stroke  of  the  pick  they  nullified  the  carefully  con- 
structed theories  of  nearly  a  half  century  and  proved  be- 
yond peradventure  that  the  romantic  and  mysterious  Semi- 
ramis  was  neither  an  Aramaean  goddess,  nor  the  arbitrary 
creation  of  a  Persian  poet,  nor  the  figment  of  a  Greek 
romancer,  but  an  actual  personality  who  was  closely  related 
to  some  of  the  best  known  sovereigns  of  Assyria.  As  the 
wife  of  Shamsi-Adad  V  and  the  mother  of  Adadinari  IV 
and  the  daughter-in-law  of  Salmanassar  III,  who  reigned 
over  Assyria  from  B.  C.  860  to  826,  the  place  of  Semi- 
ramis  in  history  is  henceforth  as  certain  and  as  fixed  as  is 
that  of  Sargon  II  or  Tiglath-pileser  IV,  two  of  the  most 
brilliant  monarchs  who  ever  presided  over  the  destinies  of 
the  vast  empire  of  Assyria  when  in  the  apogee  of  her  power 
and  splendor. 

That  romance  has  so  long  been  busy  with  the  name  of 
Semiramis  as  to  leave  small  space  for  history;  that  the 
myths  about  Derceto  and  Astarte  and  Ashtaroth  were  in 
the  course  of  ages  attached  to  the  Assyrian  palace  lady  who 
made  so  great  an  impression  on  her  contemporaries  is  not 
an  exceptional  occurrence.  Similar  myths  and  romances 
have  clustered  about  the  names  of  Alexander  the  Great, 
about  Charlemagne,  about  Harun-al-Rashid,  about  Fred- 
erick Barbarossa,  about  Dietrich  von  Bern,  and  other  nota- 
bilities of  ancient  and  mediaeval  times.^° 


19  Op.  cit.,  p.  317- 

20  As  many  fantastic  stories  are  related  about  Dietrich  von  Bern — Theodoric 
the  Great,  King  of  the  East  Goths — as  there  are  about  Semiramis.  As  the 
Assyrian  queen  was  said  to  have  been  nursed  by  doves  in  her  infancy  and  to 
have  been  transformed  into  a  dove  after  her  death  so,  the  German  legends  have 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGEIS  387 

But  the  veils  of  myth  and  legend  and  romance,  which 
have  so  long  enveloped  the  commanding  personality  of 
Semiramis,  are  finally  torn  away  and  reveal  a  woman,  like 
her  namesake  of  Eussia,  of  rare  ability  and  forcefulness, 
and  that  at  a  time  when  and  in  a  land  where  participation 
in  public  affairs  on  the  part  of  women  was  absolutely 
taboo." 

I  have  dwelt  somewhat  at  length  on  the  fascinating  ro- 
mance of  Semiramis  because  it  is  so  interesting  an  illus- 
tration of  the  extraordinary  progress  which  the  new  science 
of  Assyriology  has  made  during  the  last  few  decades; 
because  it  illustrates  how  difl&cult  it  is  in  the  annals  of  the 
nations  of  western  Asia  to  separate  myth  and  legend  from 
authentic  history;  because  it  shows  how  gradually  we  are 
acquiring  a  more  thorough  and  exact  knowledge  of  the  great 
empires  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia  than  was  possible  for  a 
Berosus  or  a  Herodotus  to  obtain;  and,  lastly,  because  it 
exhibits  in  bold  relief  the  importance  of  the  work  which 
the  Germans,  especially  the  members  of  the  Deutsche  Orient 
Gesellschaft,  have  for  years  been  quietly  accomplishing  in 
the  valley  of  the  Tigris  from  the  source  of  this  storied  river 
in  the  highlands  of  Kurdistan  to  the  alluvial  plains  of  ruin- 
besprent  Babylonia. 


it,  Dietrich  von  Bern  was  descended  from  a  spirit  and  made  his  exit  from 
the  world  on  a  black  horse.  In  Lusatia  the  mythical  Wild  Huntsman  who, 
during  violent  storms,  rides  furiously  across  the  heavens  is  called  Dietrich 
von  Bern.  Living  so  long  after  Semiramis  it  is  more  surprising  that  his  life 
should  be  made  the  theme  of  Middle  High  German  poems  and  Old  Norse 
sagas  than  that  the  Assyrian  queen  should  have  been  made  the  subject  of 
oriental  myth  and  Greek  legend. 

21  Lehmann-Haupt  in  his  interesting  and  illuminating  lecture  on  Die  At«- 
torische  Semiramis  und  ihre  Zeit,  which  was  delivered  before  the  Deutsche 
Orient-Oesellschaft  in  Berlin,  February  6,  1910,  declares:  "Von  der  sagen- 
haften  tJmhiillung  befreit,  sehen  wir  Semiramis  vor  uns  als  eine  Herrscher- 
gestalt,  die  zu  einer  Zeit,  da  sonst  der  Frau  eine  Beteiligung  am  offentlichen 
Leben  versagt  war,  die  Geschichte  zweier,  vornehmlich  durch  ihre  Klugheit  und 
Umsicht  verbundener  Reiche  in  Krieg  und  Frieden  entscheidendend  und  durch- 
greifend  geleitet  hat."    P.  68   (Ttibingen,  1910). 

How  different- is  this  conclusion  of  the  learned  German,  which  is  based  on 
the  brilliant  discoveries  of  Andrae  and  his  colleagues,  from  that  of  the  dis- 
tinguished Orientalist,  F.  Lenormant,  who,  as  the  result  of  an  exhaustive 
study  of  Semiramis,  makes  the  ea?  cathedra  statement  "ce  personage  divin  .  .  . 
doit  itre  definiti/vement  rayS  de  Vhistoire — this  divine  personage  ought  to  be 
definitely  expunged  from  history."    Op.  cit.,  p.  68. 


388  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

The  first  two  days  after  leaving  Assur  we  found  but  little 
along  the  river  to  attract  us  from  our  smoothly-gliding 
kelek.  We  encountered,  it  is  true,  occasional  eddies,  or 
reaches  in  the  river  where  the  current  was  more  rapid 
than  usual,  or  where  small  islands  were  so  numerous  that 
navigation  was  somewhat  intricate,  but  we  rather  enjoyed 
this  as  it  roused  our  crew  from  their  habitual  lethargy  and 
from  their  chronic  disposition  to  spend  all  their  time  in 
kaif.  "We  also  met  with  quite  a  number  of  breakers  which 
extended  across  the  river,  but  none  of  them  were  so  violent 
as  that  of  the  Zikr  ul  Aawaze.  Many  have  maintained  that 
the  largest  of  these  rapids  are  due  to  the  ruins  of  bridges 
that  spanned  the  Tigris  in  ancient  times,  but  it  seems  more 
probable  that  they  were  caused  by  the  ruins  of  dams  which 
were  constructed  by  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Mesopo- 
tamia **to  insure  a  constant  supply  of  water  to  the  innu- 
merable canals  which  spread  like  a  network  over  the  sur- 
rounding country."  This  seems  clear  from  what  Strabo 
says  of  them,  although  he  himself  seems  to  think  that  they 
were  built  to  prevent  hostile  fleets  from  ascending  the 
rivers  of  Mesopotamia  and  Susiana. 

The  Persians  [he  writes],  through  fear  of  incursions 
from  without  and  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  vessels 
from  ascending  these  rivers,  constructed  artificial  cataracts. 
Alexander  on  arriving  there  destroyed  as  many  of  them  as 
he  could,  those  particularly  on  the  Tigris  from  the  sea  to 
Opis."  [He  declared  that]  such  devices  were  unbecoming 
to  men  who  are  victorious  in  battle  and,  therefore,  he  con- 
sidered this  means  of  safety  unsuitable  for  him  and,  by 
easily  demolishing  the  laborious  work  of  the  Persians,  he 
proved  in  fact  that  what  they  thought  a  protection  was 
unworthy  of  the  name.'" 

A  short  distance  below  Assur  we  passed  the  embouchure 
of  the  little  Zab  whose  clear  mountain  waters  were  in  strong 

22  Geography,  Bk.  XVI,  Chap.  I,  IX. 

2S  Arrian's  Anabaaia  of  Alexander,  Bk.  VII,  Chap.  VII. 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGRIS  389 

contrast  with  the  flood  of  the  turbid  Tigris.  Near  the  con- 
fluence of  these  two  rivers  were  located  the  Median  villages 
of  Parysatis,  the  wife  of  Darius  and  mother  of  Cyrus  the 
Younger.  These  villages  had,  according  to  a  Persian  cus- 
tom, been  bestowed  upon  the  queen  by  the  king  for  her 
girdle — that  is  for  the  purchase  of  personal  apparel  and 
ornaments.  How  generous  the  Persian  monarchs  were  in 
supplying  their  wives  with  pin  money ! 

The  scenery  below  the  Little  Zab  differed  but  little  from 
that  round  about  Assur — an  arid  plain  on  the  left  and  a 
low  range  of  yellow  hills  on  the  right.  The  Arabs  call  them 
mountains — Jebel  Hamrin  and  Jebel  Makhul — ^but  they 
scarcely  deserve  such  an  exalted  appellation.  In  a  recess 
of  Jebel  Makhul  are  the  remains  of  a  stronghold  that 
reminds  one  of  similar  ruins  along  the  Danube.  It  is  called 
Kalat  Makhul — the  Castle  of  the  Maiden.  According  to  an 
Arabian  legend,  this  was  the  citadel  of  the  warlike  daugh- 
ter of  a  giant,  who  was  the  terror  of  all  who  sailed  down 
the  river.  Near  by  was  the  citadel — Kalat  el  Gebbar — of 
her  giant  father.  The  legend  apparently  recalls  the  time 
when  these  strongholds  were  occupied  by  bandits  who,  like 
the  old  robber  barons  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube,  for- 
merly levied  tribute  on  all  the  passing  keleks  or  who 
despoiled  their  owners  of  all  they  possessed.  These  brigands 
are  said  to  have  infested  certain  reaches  of  the  Tigris  as 
late  as  a  third  of  a  century  ago,  but,  although  the  traveler 
is  still  warned  against  them,  they  seem  to  have  changed 
their  scene  of  operations  to  fields  where  they  would  not  be 
80  much  harassed  by  government  soldiery. 

A  few  miles  below  the  Giant  ^s  Castle,  the  river  becomes 
much  narrower  and  swifter,  for  it  here  cuts  through  the 
sandstone  chain  of  hills  called  Jebel  Hamrin  which,  on  the 
left  bank  of  the  Tigris,  continues  in  a  southeasterly  direc- 
tion until  it  unites  with  the  one  of  the  rugged  spurs  which 
juts  out  from  the  mountains  of  Luristan.  This  narrow  sec- 
tion of  the  river  through  the  range  of  Jebel  Hamrin,  which 
is  locally  known  as  El  Fatha— the  aperture — ^is  interesting 


390  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

because  it  is  on  the  boundary  between  the  vilayets  of  Mosul 
and  Bagdad,  and  because  it  once  marked  a  point  on  the 
natural  frontier  between  Assyria  and  Babylonia. 

Outside  of  Nimroud  and  Assur,  there  is  little  during  the 
first  half  of  the  journey  to  Bagdad  to  claim  one's  attention 
except  the  numerous  Kurd  villages,  composed  of  squalid 
stone  and  mud  houses  and  frequent  groups  of  black  tents 
occupied  by  various  tribes  of  Arabs.  Around  the  Arabian 
encampments  one  sees  occasionally  quite  large  flocks  of 
sheep  and,  in  the  vicinity  of  the  stone  and  mud  villages  of 
the  Kurds,  one  will  note  the  feeble  attempts  which  its  inhab- 
itants make  to  cultivate  the  land.  Considering  the  primi- 
tive methods  of  irrigation  that  exist  here,  one  is  not  sur- 
prised to  find  that  the  poor  husbandman's  return  for  his 
labor  is  very  small.  In  marked  contrast,  however,  to  the 
unpromising  grain  fields  on  the  arid  plains  were  the  luxu- 
rious fields  of  Indian  corn  in  the  small  islands  which  dotted 
the  Tigris. 

During  the  entire  journey  between  Mosul  and  Bagdad 
one  is  never  long  out  of  sight  of  ruins  of  some  kind  or  other 
— ruins  of  old  strongholds,  ruins  of  monuments  to  Moslem 
saints,  ruins  of  mosques  and  minarets,  ruins  of  towns  and 
cities  long  since  deserted  or  destroyed  by  the  ruthless 
invader.  They  certainly  give  the  country  a  most  desolate 
appearance,  but  they,  at  the  same  time,  tell  in  the  most 
eloquent  fashion  how  great  must  have  been  the  wealth  and 
prosperity  of  this  ill-fated  country  in  the  palmiest  days  of 
the  great  Caliphs  and  during  the  reigns  of  the  wise  and 
beneficent  monarchs  of  the  Sassanidae  and  the  Achsemenidae. 

However  rich  the  flora  and  fauna  may  formerly  have  been 
along  the  Tigris,  there  is  now  visible  but  little  of  either. 
Older  travelers  speak  of  the  long  stretches  of  woodland 
along  the  river.  Now  one  sees  little  more  than  small  clumps 
of  Acacia  and  Glycyrrhiza  here  and  there  and  even  these 
seem  to  be  rapidly  disappearing. 

Wild  fowl  are  said  to  be  abundant,  but  during  the  first 
half  of  our  journey  on  the  Tigris  we  saw  only  a  few  shy 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGRIS  391 

francolins,  pelicans,  and  cormorants.  Farther  down  the 
river,  however,  the  number  of  fowl  appreciably  augmented. 
Among  them  were  some  snipe  and  a  beautiful  species  of 
duck  with  snowy- white  plumage.  Singing  birds  were  ex- 
ceedingly rare. 

According  to  early  travelers,  large  game  formerly 
abounded  the  whole  way  from  Nineveh  to  Bagdad.  Thus 
Jean  de  Thevenot  in  his  entertaining  work  on  the  Levant 
assures  us  that  in  the  vicinity  of  El  Fatha,  lions  were  as 
numerous  as  sheep  elsewhere — des  lions — que  Von  y  voit 
en  aussi  grande  quantite  que  des  moutons  ailleurs.^*  He 
tells  us  particularly  of  an  extraordinarily  large  and  power- 
ful lion  which  took  a  man  from  every  caravan — except  his 
own — that  ventured  to  pass  by  that  terrible  place.  That 
his  caravan  escaped  the  payment  of  the  tribute  exacted  by 
the  ferocious  brute  from  all  others,  was,  he  opined,  some- 
thing glorious — ce  qui  devoit  etre  hien  glorieux  pour  la 
notre  qui  ne  lui  paia  point  ce  trihut. 

Judging  by  the  precautions  which,  he  informs  us,  he  was 
continually  obliged  to  take  against  these  feral  terrors  of 
the  desert,  Thevenot  was  as  much  obsessed  by  them  as  he 
was  by  the  hot  and  poisonous  wind  which,  he  avers,  was 
such  a  deadly  menace  in  the  valley  of  the  Tigris.  This  con- 
suming wind  is,  he  declares,  the  same  as  the  ventus  urens — 
burning  wind — ^mentioned  in  the  twenty-seventh  chapter  of 
the  book  of  Job  and  prevails  during  the  summer  all  the  way 
from  Mosul  to  Surat  in  distant  India  and  is  so  fatal  that  if 
one  inhales  it  one  instantly  drops  dead,  and  his  corpse 
immediately  becomes  as  black  as  ink,  and,  if  one  touches 
it,  the  flesh  falls  from  the  bones.^" 

But  these  are  only  samples  of  travelers'  tales  that  have 
been  current  regarding  the  East  and  its  scorching  atmos- 
phere since  the  days  of  Strabo.^*    It  is,  therefore,  quite 

^^Toyage  au  Levant,  Tom.  Ill,  p.  200  (Amsterdam,  1727). 

25  Ibid.,  Ill,  p.  183. 

26  So  hot  is  it  in  Susa,  the  Greek  geographer  writes,  that  "lizards  and 
serpents  at  midday  in  the  summer  .  .  .  cannot  cross  the  streets  quick  enough 
to  prevent  their  being  burnt  to  death  midway  by  the  heat."  Op.  cit.,  Bk.  XV, 
Chap.  III. 


392  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

evident  that  Thevenot  did  not  purpose  to  allow  his  prede- 
cessors, including  his  countryman  Tavernier,  not  to  mention 
others,  to  enjoy  a  complete  monopoly  in  the  recounting  of 
wonders  and  adventures. 

In  addition  to  stories  about  the  poison  wind — the  Samum 
of  the  Arabs — most  travelers  in  the  desert  have  something 
to  say  about  the  huge,  yellow  sand  pillars  that  are  some- 
times seen  scudding  over  the  plain  on  the  wings  of  the 
whirlwind.  They  are  at  times  a  positive  menace  to  travel- 
ers and  to  the  natives  are  objects  of  terror.  According  to 
Arab  superstition  they  are  "  Jinnis  of  the  Waste  which  can- 
not be  caught,  a  notion  arising,"  Burton  tells,  **from  the 
fitful  movements  of  the  electrical  wind-eddy  that  raises 
them."" 

The  first  place  at  which  we  stopped  after  entering  the 
vilayet  of  Bagdad,  which  embraces  the  northern  part  of 
old  Babylonia,  was  Tekrit.  Although  modern  Tekrit  is 
little  more  than  a  wretched  village,  the  Tekrit  of  mediaeval 
times,  as  is  evinced  by  the  vast  area  covered  by  rubbish  and 
ruins,  was  a  large  and  flourishing  city.  Writing  of  the 
modern  town,  Rich  says  its  atmosphere  **  seems  to  be  favor- 
able to  prosers,  as  the  saying,  *To  talk  like  Tekreetli,  *  which 
is  common  in  these  parts,  apparently  indicates."  To  this 
statement  he  adds,  "If  the  women  exceed  the  men  in  this 
gift,  in  the  due  proportion  of  the  sex,  he  is  to  be  pitied  who 
marries  a  Tekreetli  wife."  ^* 

The  German  traveler,  Baron  von  Thielmann,  in  the  ac- 
count of  his  journey  down  the  Tigris,  gives  his  impression 

27  "There  are  few  sights  more  appalling  than  a  sandstorm  in  the  desert, 
the  'Zauba'ah,'  as  the  Arabs  call  it.  Devils  or  pillars  of  sand,  vertical  and  in- 
clined, measuring  a  thousand  feet  high,  rush  over  the  plain  lashing  the  sand 
at  their  base  like  a  sea  surging  under  a  furious  whirlwind;  shearing  the  grass 
clean  away  from  the  roots,  tearing  up  trees  which  are  whirled  like  leaves  and 
sticks  in  the  air,  and  sweeping  away  tents  and  houses  as  if  they  were  bits  of 
paper.  At  last  the  columns  join  at  the  top  and  form,  perhaps  three  thou- 
sand feet  above  the  earth,  a  gigantic  cloud  of  yellow  sand  which  obliterates 
not  only  the  horizon  but  even  the  mid-day  sun.  These  sand-spouts  are  the 
terror  of  travelers."  Thousand  and  One  Nights,  Vol.  I,  p.  114  (by  Richard  F. 
Burton,  Benares,  1885). 

28  Narrative  of  a  Residence  in  Koordistan  and  on  the  Site  of  Ancient 
Nineveh  with  a  Journal  of  a  Voyage  down  the  Tigris  to  Bagdad,  Vol.  II,  p. 
148  (London,  1836). 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGRIS  393 

of  the  town  in  a  single  sentence:  "As  for  ourselves  we  saw 
nothing  worth  noticing  in  this  miserable  abode  save  two 
solitary  palm-trees,  the  first  which  we  had  met  with."^" 
Incidentally,  he  quotes  as  a  statement  of  Karl  Ritter,  the 
celebrated  geographer,  "the  striking  remark  that  the  fur- 
thest palm-tree  in  the  East  always  denotes  the  limit  of 
Arab  sway  and  Arab  life." 

But,  if  modern  Tekrit  possesses  little  of  interest  for  the 
traveler,  the  ancient  city,  long  in  ruins,  still  breathes  proud 
memories  of  the  distant  past.  Once  known  as  "Tekrit  the 
Blest,"  it  was  the  seat  of  the  Monophysite  metropolitan 
and  a  center  whence  missionaries  of  the  Monophysite 
church  radiated  in  all  directions.  It  was  also  the  birth- 
place of  Saladin,  one  of  the  most  celebrated  of  oriental 
sovereigns,  the  famous  adversary  of  Richard  Coeur  de 
Lion,  the  Moslem  warrior  whose  chivalry  and  generosity 
were  the  admiration  of  the  Crusaders  and  whose  memory 
has  lived  in  history  and  romance  from  the  appearance  of 
the  Itinerarium  Regis  Ricardi  and  the  masterly  Historia 
Hierosolymitana  of  William  of  Tyre  to  the  days  when  Les- 
sing  in  his  Nathan  der  Weise  and  Scott  in  his  Talisman 
gave  those  matchless  portraits  of  the  chivalrous  sultan, 
which  made  the  name  of  Saladin  a  household  word  through- 
out the  whole  of  Christendom.  The  valley  of  the  Tigris 
can  point  to  many  illustrious  sons,  but  to  none  whose 
achievements  were  more  brilliant  than  those  of  the  immor- 
tal Kurd  who,  by  reason  of  his  gentleness,  courtesy,  and 
nobility  of  character,  his  justice,  truthfulness,  and  gener- 
osity has  been  signalized  in  The  Tales  of  a  Minstrel  of 
Rheims  as  "the  best  prince  that  ever  was  in  pagandom," 
and  who,  on  account  of  his  kingly  liberality,  is  given  a  place 
by  Dante  *°  in  company  with  such  illustrious  men  as  Alex- 
ander the  Great,  the  good  King  of  Castile,  the  good  Mar- 
chese  of  Monferrato,  the  good  Count  of  Toulouse,  Bertran 

i*  Journey  in  the  Caucasus,  Persia  and  Turkey  in  Asia,  Vol.  II,  p.  138 
(London,  1875). 
80  Convito,  IV.  2. 


394  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

of  Born,  and  Galasso  of  Montef  eltro. "  And,  although  the 
poet  condemns  Mohammed  to  the  frightful  punishment 
meted  out  to  schismatics  in  the  ninth  bolgia  of  hell,  he 
honors  Saladin  by  placing  him  in  the  noble  castle  of  Limbo 
where — sensa  martiri — ^without  torments — ^he  associates 
with  Caesar  and  Brutus,  Lucretia  and  Cornelia  and  other 
illustrious  heroes  and  heroines  of  antiquity." 

Although  Tekrit  is  in  ruins  and  has  been  since  it  was 
visited  by  the  fell  destroyer  Timur,  it  will  still  continue  to 
occupy  a  place  in  the  annals  of  our  race  because  it  was  here 
that  the  baby  eyes  of  Saladin  first  opened  on  the  bright, 
blue  sky  which  canopied  the  broad  lands  of  which  he  was  in 
manhood 's  prime  to  become  the  humane  conqueror  and  the 
wise  and  beloved  sovereign. 

Below  Tekrit  the  Tigris  gradually  widens  and  deepens, 
while  the  velocity  of  the  river's  current  becomes  markedly 
less.  Obstructions  to  navigation  rapidly  diminish  in  num- 
ber and  we  are  able  to  sail  on  an  even  keel — ^if  one  can  say 
this  of  a  craft  that  is  keelless. 

Our  progress  down  the  Tigris,  as  we  foresaw  before  em- 
barking at  Mosul,  was  exceedingly  slow.  It  rarely  exceeded 
three  miles  an  hour  while  it  was  often  less  than  one.  As  the 
fall  of  the  river  between  Mosul  and  Bagdad,  a  distance  of 
three  hundred  and  sixty  miles,  is  less  than  seven  hundred 
feet,  there  is  an  average  fall  of  less  than  two  feet  to  the 
mile.  The  Tigris  is  said  to  have  been  named  on  account  of 
the  swiftness  of  its  current,  from  the  Persian  word  for 
arrow.  The  Hebrew  name  of  the  river — Hiddekel — also 
means  arrow.  Judging,  however,  from  the  actual  velocity 
of  the  river,  this  name,  if  not  originally  given  because  of 
some  of  its  northern  rapids,  is  a  very  apparent  misnomer. 

Although  we  had  four  kelekgis — two  for  the  day  and  two 
for  the  night — their  chief  occupation  was  not  to  propel  our 
kelek,  but  rather,  by  means  of  their  long  wooden  sweeps,  to 
keep  it  away  from  rocks  and  sand  bars  and  steer  it  clear  of 

81  Divina  Commedia,  IV,  v.  121,  et  seq. 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGRIS  395 

dangerous  currents  and  whirlpools.  We  did  not,  therefore, 
row  or  sail  down  the  river ;  we  simply  floated.  Sometimes, 
when  we  faced  a  head  wind,  we  came  to  an  actual  standstill. 
But  no  one  complained.  We  were  prepared  for  this  and 
our  crew  was  so  accustomed  to  it  that  they  would  have  been 
surprised  if  we  had  not  encountered  occasional  delays  of 
this  kind.  It  gave  us  an  opportunity  to  enjoy  dolce  far 
niente,  as  never  before,  and  afforded  our  crew  the  always 
coveted  leisure  to  make  kaif,  to  smoke  and  dream  at  their 
sweet  pleasure.   With  the  Lotos-Eaters  their 

Inner  spirit  sings 
**There  is  no  joy  but  calm!*' 
Why  should  we  only  toil,  the  roof  and  crown  of  things  f 

And  how  natural  is  it  for  us  to  appreciate  the  point  of 
view  of  our  calm-loving,  rest-seeking  boatmen !  For  hours 
at  a  time  they  sit  at  their  posts  without  uttering  a  word 
and  as  immovable  as  statues.  Whether  they  arrive  at  their 
destination  in  a  week  or  a  month  is  apparently  immaterial 
to  them.  So  long  as  they  are  allowed  to  enjoy  their  kaif 
they  are  supremely  happy. 

As  we  gaze  on  our  men  at  their  "dreamful  ease,"  I  recall 
the  verses  of  Tennyson's  ''Song  of  the  Lotos-Eaters": 

How  sweet  it  were,  hearing  the  downward  stream 
With  half -shut  eyes  ever  to  seem 
Falling  asleep  in  a  half  dream! 

How  sweet  (while  warm  airs  lull  us,  blowing  slowly) 

With  half-dropt  eyelid  still, 

Beneath  a  heaven  dark  and  holy, 

To  watch  the  long  bright  river  drawing  slowly 

His  waters  from  the  purple  hill — 

To  hear  the  dewy  echoes  calling 

From  cave  to  cave  thro'  the  thick  twined  vine — 

To  watch  the  emerald-color 'd  water  falling 

Thro'  many  a  wov'n  acanthus  wreath  divine! 

Noiselessly  and,  at  times,  almost  imperceptibly,  we  glided 


396  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

down  the  majestic  Tigris  which  through  the  broad  desert 
waste  floats 

Changeless  to  the  changeless  sea. 

With  ever  renewed  interest  we  gazed  on  the  silent  ruins 
whose  history  was  ended  before  that  of  Ancient  Rome 
began.  The  Forum,  the  Palatine,  the  Colosseum,  the  Mole 
of  Hadrian  belong  in  their  splendor  to  an  age  when  the 
more  imposing  ruins  along  the  Tigris  were  hoary  with  the 
dust  of  centuries  or  long  buried  under  the  shifting  sands 
of  the  desert. 

But  it  is  at  the  hour  of  sunset  that  one  most  completely 
falls  under  the  spell  of  the  Tigris  and  the  historic  land 
through  which  it  flows.  For  the  sunsets  of  the  desert  lands 
of  the  East  exhibit  a  gorgeousness  of  color  unknown  in  our 
land  of  fogs  and  mists.  This  is  probably  owing  to  the  haze 
produced  by  impalpable  dust  in  an  exceptionally  dry  atmos- 
phere. As  the  sun  nears  the  horizon,  the  western  sky  glows 
with  all  the  delicate  hues  of  ruby  and  topaz,  emerald  and 
amethyst  and,  after  it  has  set,  the  zodiacal  light,  rising 
from  where  the  sun  disappeared,  ascends  to  the  zenith  with 
a  display  of  all  the  delicate  tints  of  rose  and  gold  and  lilac 
of  the  aurora  borealis. 

The  glories  of  a  sunset  in  Mesopotamia  are  indeed  en- 
trancing, but  it  is  when  night  comes  with  her  dewy  fresh- 
ness and 

Her  starry  shade 
Of  dim  and  solitary  loveliness; 

when  the  moon  silvers  the  river's  wavelets  and  its  ruin- 
crested  banks,  that  one  loves  to  linger  in  this  land  of  a  great 
historic  past  and  contemplate  at  leisure 

Those  ruined  shrines  and  towers  thai  seem 

The  relics  of  a  splendid  dream; 

Amid  whose  fairy  loneliness 

Naught  hut  the  lapwing's  cry  is  heardP 

83  Moore's  Lalla  Rookh,  p.  181  (New  York,  1890). 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGRIS  397 

How  we  reveled  in  those  glorious  moonlit  nights  spent 
on  our  tranquilly  floating  kelek  on  the  enchanting  Tigris! 
''They  say  that  Carl  Niebuhr,  the  traveler,  when  old  and 
blind,  used  to  lie  and  dream  over  the  old  Eastern  landscapes 
and  night-skies  in  his  darkened  life, — a  perpetual  world 
of  enchantment  to  console  him."  '^  How  could  it  have  been 
otherwise  ?  For  how  often  since  our  return  from  the  East 
where  we,  like  Niebuhr,  have  spent  some  of  the  most  delight- 
ful days  of  our  life,  have  we  not  also  found  ourselves  dream- 
ing of  the  eventful  days  and  the  fascinating  nights  which 
it  was  our  privilege  to  spend  under  the  pale  azure  skies  of 
the  inspiring  and  enthralling  home  of  our  race? 

But  while,  in  silent  rapture,  we  were  thus  enjoying  the 
magnificent  displays  of  the  setting  sun  and  were  reveling 
in  the  beauties  of  the  stars, — ''the  flowers  of  the  sky,"  "the 
poetry  of  heaven,"  "the  forget-me-nots  of  the  angels," — 
our  crew  was  totally  indifferent  to  all  these  sublime  mani- 
festations of  nature  and  completely  buried  in  their  kaif. 
They  were  indeed  living  pictures  of  what  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson  somewhere  most  aptly  calls  "the  apotheosis  of 
stupidity."  As  we  noted  in  their  placid  features  their  rap- 
turous expression  of  contentment  and  happiness  we  realized 
as  never  before  the  full  force  of  the  poet's  words, 

The  heaven  of  each  is  hut  what  each  desires. 

Never  once,  during  our  journey  from  Mosul  to  Tekrit 
were  we  ever  out  of  sight  of  some  place  or  monument  of 
historic  or  legendary  lore.  But  the  number  of  these  re- 
minders of  the  hoary  past  rapidly  increased  in  our  sail 
between  Tekrit  and  Bagdad.  About  five  miles  below  Sala- 
din's  birthplace  we  came  to  the  little  town  of  Iman  Dura. 
According  to  tradition,  it  was  here  that  King  Nebuchadnez- 
zar set  up  his  colossal  golden  statue  which  the  Hebrews, 
Sidrach,  Misach,  and  Abednago,  in  defiance  of  the  King's 
orders,  refused  to  adore.**     It  was  near  Dura  that  the 

«3  Life  and  Letters  of  B.  B.  Oowell,  p.  318  (by  G.  Cowell,  London,  1904). 
«*  Daniel,  iii. 


398  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Roman  army  under  Jovian  pitched  their  tents  after  the 
death  of  Julian  the  Apostate  and  it  was  here  that  the  Roman 
Emperor  was  forced  to  conclude  an  ignominious  peace — 
necessariam  quidem  sed  ignohilem,  writes  Eutropius — with 
the  Persian  King,  Sapor  the  Great.  A  short  distance  below 
Dura  is  a  small  stream  which  the  natives  say  was  a  canal 
dug  by  King  Solomon.  Near  it,  on  the  left  bank  of  the 
Tigris,  begins  the  ruins  of  Eski  Bagdad — Old  Bagdad — '*a 
mighty  field  of  ruins, ' '  writes  Thielmann, ' '  extending  some 
twenty-five  miles  along  the  Tigris. ' '  ^'  Situated  in  this  long 
field  of  ruins  is  the  little  town  of  Samara,  as  celebrated  for 
its  romantic  history  as  for  its  remarkable  monuments  which, 
however,  have  only  in  the  last  decade  or  two  received  the 
attention  on  the  part  of  scholars  which  they  so  richly 
deserve. 

The  ruins  of  which  I  have  here  given  a  brief  account 
[writes  a  well-known  archaBologist,  after  a  visit  to  Samara] 
are  of  the  first  importance  for  the  elucidation  of  the  early 
history  of  the  arts  of  Islam.  They  can  all  be  dated  within 
a  period  of  forty  years  falling  in  the  ninth  century,  and 
are,  therefore,  among  the  earliest  existing  examples  of 
Mohammedan  architecture.  They  bear  witness  to  the  Meso- 
potamian  influences  under  which  it  arose.  The  spiral  towers 
of  Samara  and  Abu  Dulaf  are  an  adaptation  of  the  temple 
pyramids  and  Assyria  and  Babylonia,  which  had  a  spiral 
path  leading  to  the  summit ;  the  technique  of  arch  and  vault 
was  invented  by  the  ancient  East  and  transmitted  through 
Sassannian  builders  to  the  Arab  invaders;  the  decoration 
is  Persian  or  Mesopotamian  and  almost  untouched  by  the 
genius  of  the  West.  In  the  palaces  and  the  mosques  of 
Samara  we  can  see  the  conquerors  themselves  conquered 
by  a  culture  which  had  been  developing  during  thousands 
of  years  on  Mesopotamian  soil,  a  culture  which  had  received 
indeed  new  elements  into  its  composition,  which  had  learnt 
from  the  Greek  and  from  the  Persian,  but  had  maintained 
in  spite  of  all  modifications  its  distinctive  character.^* 

S6  Op.  cit.,  II,  139. 

89  Gertrude  L.  Bell,  in  Amurath  to  Amurath,  p.  246  (London,  1911). 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGRIS  399 

The  complex  of  ruined  mosques  and  palaces  which  here 
excites  the  admiration  of  the  student  dates  from  the  time — 
A.  D.  836  to  892 — when  Samara  was  the  capital  of  the 
Abbassid  Caliphate.  Mutasim,  a  son  of  Harun-al-Rashid, 
was  the  first  caliph  who  made  his  residence  here.  So 
numerous  and  magnificent  were  the  edifices  which  he  called 
into  existence,  as  by  an  enchanter's  wand,  that  the  glories 
of  Samara  soon  rivaled  those  of  Bagdad  in  the  days  of  her 
greatest  power  and  prosperity.  The  magnificence  of  the 
enlarged  and  embellished  city  was  expressed  in  the  oiSficial 
name  which  was  then  given  it,  for,  in  lieu  of  Samara,  it 
was  called  Surra-man-raa — ^Who  sees  it,  rejoices.  Judging 
from  the  ground  plan  of  the  palaces  of  Samara  as  given 
by  M.  H.  Violet,  the  distinguished  French  Academician  who, 
during  a  visit  to  Samara,  made  a  careful  study  of  its  impos- 
ing ruins,  this  group  of  buildings  was  not  inferior  to  the 
royal  edifices  of  Versailles." 

According  to  local  tradition  Samara,  like  Sestos  and 
Abydos,  had  also  its  Hero  and  Leander.  As  they  lived  in 
palaces  on  opposite  sides  of  the  river,  the  Samara  Leander 
could  see  his  immorata,  who  was  the  daughter  of  a  sultan, 
only  by  breasting  the  swift-flowing  waters  of  the  romantic 
Tigris.  The  lovers  were,  however,  more  fortunate  than 
were  their  Greek  prototypes,  for  their  lives  did  not  end  in 
the  tragedy  which  overtook  the  Romeo  and  Juliet  of  the 
Dardanelles  but,  so  the  story  runs,  terminated  in  a  happy 
marriage  like  that  of  Feramoz  and  Lalla  Rookh.  And  the 
memory  of  the  devoted  pair  is  still  kept  green  by  the  names 
which  the  Arabs  have  given  to  the  ruins  of  their  former 
homes  —  El  Aschik  —  the  lover  —  and  El  Maschuka  —  the 
beloved.^® 

87  "Le  Khalife,  alors  tout-puissant,  vivait  Ik  au  milieu  de  sea  milices  et  de 
tous  les  grands  scheiks  de  son  royaume,  plus  entour6  de  courtisans  que  Louis 
XIV  k  Versailles.  II  r6servait  d'ailleurs  toutes  ses  faveurs  k  ceux  aui  venaient 
embellir  Samara  en  coustruisant  quelques  belles  residences  dans  le  voisinage 
du  palais."  Description  du  Palais  de  Al-Moutasim  Fits  d'Haroun-al-Raschid 
A  Batnara  et  de  Quelques  Monuments  Arabs  connus  de  la  Mesopotamia,  p.  23 
and  plate  XIV  (par  M.  H.  Violet,  Paris,  1909).  Cf.  Sarre  und  Herzfeld'a 
illuminating  monograph  on  Samara. 

a«  Cf.  Von  Oppenheim,  pp.  cit.,  II,  p.  221. 


400  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Below  Samara  the  immber  of  ruins  and  places  of  his- 
toric and  legendary  interest  seemed  to  increase  in  propor- 
tion as  we  sailed  southwards.  Particularly  interesting  were 
the  ruins  of  Opis  which  was  once,  next  to  Babylon,  the  most 
important  city  in  Babylonia.  It  was  to  this  point  that  were 
floated  from  the  upper  Tigris  the  boats  that  Sennacherib, 
seven  centuries  B.  C,  had  constructed  for  use  in  his  cele- 
brated campaign  against  the  Chaldeans  and  Elamites. 
From  Opis  the  boats  were  transported  by  camels  overland 
to  the  Euphrates,  down  which  they  sailed  to  the  Persian 
Gulf.  How  forcibly  this  achievement  of  the  great  Assyrian 
monarch  reminds  one  of  a  similar  exploit  nearly  twenty- 
two  centuries  later,  when  Mohammed  the  Conqueror  had  a 
part  of  his  fleet  conveyed  over  the  elevated  section  of  land 
between  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Golden  Horn  preparatory 
to  his  capture  of  Constantinople,  May  29, 1453 ! 

Opis  is  also  celebrated  as  having  been  visited  by  Alex- 
ander the  Great  in  his  memorable  voyage  up  the  Tigris 
from  the  Persian  Gulf.  **In  his  voyage  up,"  as  Arrian 
informs  us,  **he  destroyed  the  weirs  which  existed  in  the 
river  and  thus  made  the  stream  quite  level.  * '  ^®  More  than 
twenty-one  centuries  afterwards,  in  1839,  the  English 
steamer  *' Euphrates" — the  first  steamer  ever  seen  in  this 
region — ascended  the  Tigris  on  its  voyage  of  reconnaissance 
when  it  went  up  the  river  to  the  tomb  of  Sultan  Abdullah 
near  the  mouth  of  the  Greater  Zab.*"  But  since  that  date 
the  navigation  of  the  Tigris — at  least  for  commercial  pur- 
poses— has  terminated  at  Bagdad.  If  the  country  border- 
ing the  Tigris  were  under  a  stable  and  enterprising  govern- 
ment, there  is  no  reason  why  light-draught  and  light-ton- 
nage boats  should  not  ply  regularly  not  only  between  Bag- 
dad and  Opis  but  between  Bagdad  and  Mosul  as  well.  High 
explosives  properly  applied  under  the  direction  of  compe- 
tent engineers,  and  possibly  a  dam  or  two  with  suitable 


89  Op.  cit.,  p.  381. 

*o  Cf.  Travels  and  Researches  in  Asia  Minor,  Mesopotamia,  Ohaldea  and 
Armenia,  Vol.  II,  p.  152  (by  W.  F.  Ainsworth,  London,  1842). 


FLOATING  DOWN  THE  TIGRIS  401 

locks  would  solve  the  problem  and  would  contribute  im- 
mensely towards  restoring  to  its  former  flourishing  con- 
dition a  country  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  now  little  more 
than  a  desert  overspread  with  ruins  **  where  kings  have 
paced"  and  where 

The  gray  fox  litters  safe 
Under  the  broken  thrones. 

When  the  Tigris  shall  have  been  cleared  for  steam  navi- 
gation from  Bagdad  to  Mosul  and  the  Bagdad  Railway  shall 
be  completed  and  in  successful  operation  through  its  entire 
length,  we  may  hope  to  see  the  fertile.lands,  through  which 
the  famous  river  flows  once  more  the  home  of  teeming  mil- 
lions as  they  were  when  they  constituted  the  richest  and 
the  most  flourishing  region  of  Western  Asia. 

Below  Opis  we  noted  a  marked  change  in  the  aspect  of 
the  country.  We  were  now  passing  through  a  rich  alluvial 
plain  where  not  a  pebble  was  to  be  seen.  There  were  on 
both  sides  of  the  river  broad,  verdant  fields  enameled  with 
wild  flowers  and  carefully  irrigated  by  the  primitive  sha- 
doofs and  norias  which  are  still  in  use  here  as  they  are 
along  the  Nile  and  in  all  parts  of  the  Levant.  Much  of  this 
land  is  under  cultivation  or  utilized  for  grazing,  as  is 
evinced  by  the  flocks  and  herds  with  which  the  country  is 
everywhere  dotted.  As  we  slowly  glided  down  the  river 
we  observed  an  ever-increasing  number  of  villages  sur- 
rounded by  gardens  and  fruit  trees  and  clumps  of  date 
palms.  All  these  grateful  changes  in  the  landscape,  espe- 
cially the  beautiful  palm  groves  which  hourly  became  more 
numerous  and  more  attractive,  and  the  little  fleets  of  guf- 
fahs  filled  with  commodities  and  passengers,  told  us  that 
we  were  near  our  destination.  These  indications  did  not 
mislead ;  for  a  few  hours  later  the  domes  and  minarets  of 
Bagdad  hove  in  sight  and  our  week's  happy  floating  on  a 
kelek  was  at  an  end.  We  were  at  last  within  the  gates  of 
the  world-renowned  metropolis  of  the  Abbasside  Caliphs. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

BAGDAD 

Bomantic  Bagdad!  name  to  childhood  dear. 
Awaking  terror's  thrill  and  pity's  tear; 
For  there  the  sorcerer  gloomed,  the  genii  dwelt, 
And  Love  and  Worth  to  good  Al  Rashid  knelt; 
Prince  of  the  Thousand  Tales!  whose  glorious  reign 
So  brightly  shines  in  fancy's  fair  domain! 
Whose  noMe  deeds  still  Aral)  minstrels  sing, 
Who  rivaled  all  hut  Gallia's  Knightly  King. 

Nicolas  Michel. 

We  entered  Bagdad  in  the  full  glory  of  a  Mesopotamian 
sunset.  Her  mosques  glowed  with  amber  and  light  prim- 
rose; her  minarets  with  the  most  delicate  rose  and  gold. 
The  noble  crowns  of  stately  palm  trees  cast  masses  of 
shade  over  gardens  and  fountains  and,  trembling  under  a 
gentle  breeze  from  Oman's  Sea,  played  almost  mystically 
in  the  quivering  and  departing  sunlight.  Throngs  of 
Turks  and  Arabs,  Kurds  and  Persians  pressed  feverishly 
through  the  narrow  streets.  The  color  notes  of  the  red 
and  green,  blue  and  white  robes  of  the  men  and  women 
struck  a  pleasant  harmony  with  the  drab  of  the  walls  and 
the  maroon  and  olive  green  of  the  fretted  bay  windows 
which  projected  over  the  gradually  darkening  thorough- 
fares of  the  picturesque  city  of  Harun-al-Rashid. 

"We  felt  ourselves  at  once  in  the  thrall  of  the  quiet  and 
subtle  spell  which  the  famed  home  of  the  Caliphs  had  cast 
over  us,  but,  notwithstanding  this,  we  lost  no  time  in  repair- 
ing to  the  home  of  the  Carmelite  Fathers,  who  had  been 
advised  of  our  arrival  and  who  gave  us  a  welcome  such  as 
is  accorded  only  by  the  generous  and  warm-hearted  mis- 
sionaries of  the  Orient.  Once  under  their  hospitable  roof 
we  felt  that  we  were  a  member  of  their  religious  family. 

402 


BAGDAD  403 

So  fully  was  our  every  want  foreseen  and  our  every  desire 
anticipated  that  we  saw  at  a  glance  that  our  sojourn  among 
these  devoted  fathers  would  be  fully  as  pleasant  and  as 
profitable  as  had  been  our  stay  among  the  whole-souled 
Capuchins  of  Urfa  and  the  zealous  and  scholarly  Domin- 
icans of  Mosul.  Nor  were  we  mistaken,  for  every  hour  we 
spent  with  the  good  Carmelite  priests  of  Bagdad  was  re- 
plete with  pleasure,  instruction,  and  edification. 

The  story  of  the  going  of  the  Carmelites  to  Bagdad  and 
the  record  of  their  labors  since  their  arrival  there  is  as 
interesting  as  it  is  inspiring.  Their  formal  taking  posses- 
sion of  the  Mission  of  Bagdad,  the  Carmelites  tell  us,  took 
place  in  the  first  decade  of  the  seventeenth  century,  under 
the  most  dramatic  circumstances.  The  zealous  Father 
Paul-Simon,  superior  of  their  mission  in  Persia,  who  had 
been  sent  by  the  Shah  as  an  envoy  to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff, 
arrived  at  Bagdad  so  exhausted  by  the  fatigues  of  a  long 
and  trying  journey  and  the  inroads  of  disease  that,  when  he 
reached  the  gate  of  the  city,  he  prostrated  himself  on  the 
ground  and  gave  up  the  ghost. 

A  little  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  this  tragic 
occurrence,  was  created  the  Latin  bishopric  of  Bagdad, 
usually  known  as  the  See  of  Babylon.  This  was  due  to  the 
progress  which  the  Church  had  made  in  Persia — a  progress 
that  was  the  result  of  the  fruitful  missionary  labors  in  that 
land  of  Carmelites,  Jesuits,  and  Dominicans  and  to  the 
protection  and  liberty  which  had  been  accorded  them  by 
the  wise  and  enlightened  Shah,  Abbas  the  Great.  Recog- 
nizing the  necessity  of  a  bishop  as  head  of  the  Persian 
mission,  Abbas,  in  1830,  sent  Father  Thaddee,  a  Carmelite, 
to  Rome,  to  request  the  Holy  Father  to  create  a  Latin  bish- 
opric in  Ispahan,  his  capital,  with  a  permanent  coadjutor- 
ship  which  should  guarantee  the  new  episcopate  from  too 
long  vacancies.  As  a  result  of  the  Persian  monarch's  inter- 
est in  the  Church,  Father  Thaddee  was  promoted  to  the 
new  See  of  Ispahan.  He  received  as  coadjutor  Father 
Perez,  likewise  a  Carmelite,  who  was  given  the  specially 


404  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

created  title  of  Bishop  of  Babylonia,  which  at  that  time  was 
a  part  of  the  Persian  Empire. 

In  the  meantime,  a  pious  lady  of  Meaux,  France — Marie 
Ricouard — put  at  the  disposition  of  the  Holy  See  six  thou- 
sand Spanish  doubloons  for  the  creation  and  endowment  of 
a  bishopric  in  partihus  infidelibus,  on  the  double  condition 
that  to  the  donor  should  be  reserved  the  presentation  of  the 
first  titular  and  that  the  following  bishops  should  always 
be  of  French  nationality. 

Pope  Urban  VIII  by  his  bull.  Super  Universas,  decreed 
in  June  1838,  that  the  sum  named  should  be  appropriated 
to  the  See  of  ''Babylon  or  Bagdad,"  with  the  formal  stipu- 
lation that  all  future  incumbents  of  this  bishopric  should 
be  obliged  to  reside  there  personally  under  pain  of  forfeit- 
ing all  right  to  the  fruits  of  the  Ricouard  foundation.  At 
the  same  time  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  named  as  the  first 
bishop  of  the  new  see  Father  Bernard  de  Sainte-Therese, 
of  Paris,  who  had  been  proposed  by  the  donor  of  the  fund 
mentioned,  and  ordained  that  thenceforth  no  one  should  be 
promoted  to  this  see  unless  he  had  been  born  in  France. 
This  wish  of  the  Pope  and  of  the  pious  donor  has  thus  far 
never  been  transgressed,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  it  will  continue  to  assure  to  France  the  honor  of  seeing 
one  of  her  sons  occupy  the  See  of  Bagdad.^ 

In  the  year  1677  a  special  act,  signed  at  Constantinople 
by  the  Ambassador  of  Louis  XIV,  named  the  superior  of 
the  Carmelites  in  Basra  consul  of  France,  in  perpetuum. 
At  a  later  date  the  French  King  gave  the  title  and  preroga- 
tives of  consul  to  the  Bishop  of  Bagdad.  This  was  an 
immense  help  to  the  bishop  in  his  ministry  for  it  gave  him 
increased  power  with  the  civil  government  and  enhanced 
immensely  his  prestige  among  the  Mohammedans.  From 
the  time  of  Francis  I,  when  a  treaty  of  peace  and  amnity 
and  commerce  was  signed  by  the  French  Government  and 
the  Sublime  Porte,  the  French  had  enjoyed  full  religious 

1  Lea  Missions  CathoUques  Frangaises  au  XIXe  Sihcle,  Tom.  I,  p.  223,  et  aeq. 
(Paris,  1900). 


BAGDAD  405 

liberty  throughout  the  Ottoman  Empire  and  France  contin- 
ued for  centuries  to  be  with  the  Moslem  the  favored  nation 
of  Europe.^ 

But,  although  the  consular  positions  which  were  held 
by  the  Carmelite  superior  of  Basra  and  the  bishop  of  Bag- 
dad and,  still  more,  the  treaty  of  amnity  which  had  been 
established  between  the  French  and  Ottoman  governments 
— especially  after  the  Ottoman  Turks  gained  possession  of 
Mesopotamia  in  A.  D.  1534 — had  given  the  French  mis- 
sionaries in  the  Near  East  increased  power  and  prestige, 
they  still  had  to  confront  difficulties  innumerable  and  sacri- 
fices that  were  calculated  to  appall  all  but  the  noblest 
heroes. 

Their  difficulties,  however,  did  not  proceed  from  the 
followers  of  Mohammed  so  much  as  from  lack  of  material 
resources  and  from  the  paucity  of  subjects  for  the  ever- 
expanding  work  of  the  mission.  So  many  calls  were  made 
on  their  charity  by  the  poor  that  they  were  at  times  forced 
to  live  on  only  a  single  piece  of  dry  bread  a  day,  with  noth- 
ing to  flavor  it  but  a  small  clove  of  garlic.  Then  both  priests 
and  bishops  were  decimated  by  the  plague  while  ministering 
at  the  bedside  of  the  stricken  members  of  their  flock.  On 
one  occasion  the  Carmelite  superior  of  Bagdad  saw  himself 
without  any  assistants  whatever.  Age  and  disease  had 
taken  them  all  from  him  one  after  another.  In  this  extrem- 
ity he  wrote  letter  after  letter  to  his  superior  general  in 
Rome,  conjuring  him  to  send  him  men.  '^I  have  none,  was 
the  general's  answer;  if  you  want  them,  come  and  seek 
them." 

The  superior,  Father  Marie-Joseph,  took  the  general  at 
his  word.  Poor  as  Job,  he  borrowed  money  enough  to  hire 
a  camel  and  alone,  with  a  single  Arab  and  a  sack  of  dates 
and  a  leather  bottle  of  water,  he  started  for  Aleppo  on  the 
long  journey — nearly  eight  hundred  miles — through  the 
inhospitable  Arabian  and  Syrian  deserts.    Twice  his  alert- 


3  Of.  Hiatoirg  de  VEtnpire  Ottoman,  Tom.  I,  p.  172  et.  $eq.  (hy  the  Vicomte 
De  la  Jonquifere,  Paris,  1914). 


406  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

ness  and  eloquence  saved  him  from  bands  of  marauding 
Bedouins.  But,  finally,  after  untold  difficulties  and  suffer- 
ings he  reached  Aleppo  and  Rome.  His  superior  general 
in  the  Eternal  City  was  so  impressed  by  the  magnificent 
audacity  of  the  zealous  missionary  that  he  found  a  means 
of  procuring  for  him  the  assistants  he  so  much  needed  and 
sent  him  back  to  his  flock  rejoicing.  Among  these  assist- 
ants was  Father  Damien,  formerly  a  practicing  physician, 
who  soon  proved  to  be  a  godsend  to  the  suffering  poor  of 
Bagdad,  whom  he  gladly  treated  and  supplied  with  medi- 
cine without  any  compensation  whatever.^ 

As  in  the  missions  of  Edessa  and  Mosul,  the  missionaries 
of  Bagdad  are  nobly  assisted  in  their  moral  and  civilizing 
work  by  devoted  nuns  from  France.  But  the  life  of  these 
devoted  sisters  is  one  of  the  greatest  self-sacrifice.  They 
may  not,  as  did  the  Carmelite  priests,  have  attempted  to 
imitate  St.  Peter  of  Alcantara,  who  took  but  one  repast 
and  that  of  the  most  frugal  kind,  only  once  every  three 
days ;  but  the  privations  which  they  for  years  had  to  endure 
would  daunt  all  but  the  most  courageous  souls.  Even  be- 
fore they  reached  the  scene  of  their  missionary  activities 
they  had  to  pass  through  an  experience  that,  for  delicately 
reared  women  as  they  were,  was  truly  disheartening  for 
any  but  those  engaged  in  the  service  of  the  Master.  This 
was  their  long  journey  on  horseback — in  great  part — 
through  a  wild  and  forbidding  desert  from  Beirut  to  Bag- 
dad. They  were  twenty-four  days  in  the  saddle.  The 
nights  they  had  to  spend  in  the  filthy,  noisy,  dilapidated 
caravansaries  which  were  scarcely  fit  shelter  for  the  beasts 
that  carried  them.  And  yet  these  heroic  religieuses  always 
maintained  the  same  cheerfulness  during  this  long  and 
trying  journey  as  ever  characterizes  them  in  the  perform- 
ance of  their  arduous  labors  in  the  schoolroom  and  at  the 
bedside  of  the  sick  and  suffering.* 

3  Du  Caucasus  au  Golfe  Persiqne  h  travers  VArmSnie,  le  Kurdistan  et  la 
Mesopotamie,  p.  458  et  seq.  (by  P.  Miiller-Simonis  and  H.  Hyvernat,  Wash- 
ington, 1892). 

*  See  the  interesting  work  of  Mme.  Dieulafoy  on  La  Perse,  la  Chaldee  et  la 
Susiane,  p.  676  et  seq.  (Paris,  1887). 


BAGDAD  407 

But  the  labors  of  these  ardent  souls  is  not  without  com- 
pensation, even  in  this  world.  Notwithstanding  all  the 
drawbacks  that  confront  them  they  have  the  comfort  of 
knowing  that  their  sacrifices  are  not  in  vain.  The  number 
of  their  pupils,  Mohammedans  and  Jews,  as  well  as  Chris- 
tians of  all  the  numerous  rites  in  Mesopotamia,  is  so  rap- 
idly augmenting,  that  it  is  difficult  for  the  good  nuns  to 
house  them  and  secure  enough  teachers  to  take  care  of 
them.  For,  in  addition  to  the  ordinary  branches  of  an 
elementary  education,  they  teach  their  young  charges  vari- 
ous kinds  of  needlework  and  the  simpler  principles  of 
domestic  economy. 

'^The  children  of  Bagdad  are  very  bright  and  very  eager 
to  learn,"  said  one  of  the  sisters  to  me  in  answer  to  a 
question  I  had  asked,  **and  nowhere  will  you  find  pupils 
who  are  more  studious  or  more  grateful  for  the  opportuni- 
ties they  have  of  improving  their  minds.  Our  great  grief 
is  that  our  school-buildings  are  not  larger  and  that  we 
have  not  more  sisters  to  meet  the  constantly  increasing 
demands  that  are  made  on  us  in  our  class-rooms.  But," 
she  said,  in  sweet  resignation,  *'the  Bon  Dieu  will  provide 
in  His  own  good  time." 

Never  before  did  I  so  much  regret  that  I  was  not  a  mil- 
lionaire as  I  did  when  I  visited  the  schools  of  these  perf  ervid 
and  laborious  religieuses  and  saw  what  splendid  results 
they  were  achieving  with  the  very  limited  resources  at  their 
disposal  and  learned  how  much  more  they  could  accomplish 
if  they  had  the  necessary  means.  If  the  good  and  generous 
people  of  America  could  only  realize  the  noble  work  which 
the  good  Sisters  of  the  Presentation  are  achieving  in  Bagdad 
and  how  very  worthy  they  are  of  assistance,  I  am  sure  that 
many  would  open  wide  their  purses  for  the  benefit  of  both 
teachers  and  pupils.  I  know  of  few  places  where  money 
could  be  spent  to  better  purpose.  When  one  remembers 
that  these  ardent  souls  are  condemned  to  perpetual  exile 
by  the  atrocious  Association  Laws  of  their  mother  country 
and  that  they  frequently  lack  the  ordinary  necessities  of 


408  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

life  because  they  are  unable  to  reach  a  public  that  would 
gladly  succor  them  in  their  needs  and  cooperate  with  them 
in  their  admirable  work,  one  cannot  help  sympathizing  with 
them  and  feel  that  it  is  one's  duty  to  help  them  in  every 
way  possible. 

The  school  for  boys  under  the  direction  of  the  Carmelite 
Fathers  is  recognized  as  the  best  in  Bagdad.  It,  with  the 
church  and  monastery  of  the  Fathers,  occupies  a  capital 
position  in  the  center  of  the  city  and  is  pronounced  by 
foreigners  to  be  *  *  a  French  oasis  in  the  midst  of  the  desert. ' ' 

It  will  interest  the  reader  to  know  that  the  study  of 
French  is  obligatory  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  classes 
of  the  school.  The  result  is  that  many  of  the  pupils  speak 
the  language  with  wonderful  facility  and  correctness.  At 
the  commencement  exercises  at  the  end  of  the  year  they 
exhibit  their  proficiency  before  a  large  audience  made  up  of 
the  elite  of  the  city  by  giving  a  play  from  Racine.  It  is  in 
consequence  of  their  thorough  knowledge  of  the  language  of 
Moliere  and  Bossuet  that  after  leaving  school  they  are 
given  high  positions  in  the  leading  houses  of  commerce  and 
in  all  the  administrative  offices  of  the  government.  The 
traveler  is  often  surprised  at  the  extent  to  which  French 
is  spoken  in  the  Near  East ;  but  when  one  remembers  that 
the  schools  and  colleges  in  the  Ottoman  Empire,  which  are 
under  the  direction  of  French  priests,  sisters,  and  laymen 
are  numbered  by  the  thousand,  the  wonder  ceases.  It  is 
for  this  reason  that  the  empire  is,  in  the  words  of  Pierre 
Loti — presque  un  pays  de  langue  frmigaise — almost  a  coun- 
try of  the  French  language." 

The  missionaries  in  Bagdad — from  the  Archbishop  down 
to  the  humblest  nun — are  greatly  attached  to  the  city  in 
which  Divine  Providence  has  called  them  to  labor  and — to 
suffer.  Not  the  least  reason  for  this  attachment  is  the 
glorious  position  which  Bagdad  so  long  occupied  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  Until  the  late  war  the  average  reader 
knew  little  about  it  except  that  it  was  in  some  way  asso- 

^Turquie  Agonisante,  p.  137   (Paris,  1913). 


BAGDAD  409 

ciated  with  the  "Arabian  Nights."  And  this  association 
was  so  vague  in  his  mind  that  he  was  not  sure  whether 
Bagdad  ever  had  an  actual  existence  or  whether  it,  like  the 
famous  characters  in  Thousand  and  One  Nights,  belonged 
only  to  fable  land. 

For  this  reason  it  seems  this  chapter  would  be  incomplete 
without  some  account  of  the  famous  city  which,  during  five 
hundred  years,  was  the  capital  of  the  Abbasside  Caliphs; 
which,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  was  for  a  considerable 
period  the  largest  city  in  the  world;  which,  during  many 
centuries  bore  rule  from  the  Oxus  to  the  Nile  and  from  the 
Caucasus  to  the  Gulf  of  Oman;  and  which,  during  a  half 
millennium,  was  to  Islam  what  Rome  is  to  Christendom. 

Bagdad  was  founded  A.  D.  762,  by  Al-Mansur,  the  second 
of  the  Abbasside  Caliphs.  Before  deciding  on  a  site  for 
his  capital  Al-Mansur  made  many  journeys  and  carefully 
examined  all  the  available  locations  along  the  Tigris  from 
Jarjaraya  to  Mosul.  Moslem  historians  inform  us  that  the 
Caliph  was  finally  induced  to  select  the  spot  on  which 
Bagdad  now  stands  by  the  advice  of  those  who  had  lived 
there  both  in  winter  and  in  summer  and  who  assured  him 
that  **  among  all  the  Tigris  lands  this  district  especially 
was  celebrated  for  its  freedom  from  the  plague  of  mosqui- 
toes and  that  the  nights,  even  in  the  height  of  summer,  were 
cool  and  pleasant. '  *  *  *  We  are,  furthermore,  of  the  opinion, '  * 
they  continued,  "that  thou  shouldst  found  the  city  here 
because  thou  shalt  thereby  live  amongst  palms  and  near 
water,  so  that  if  one  district  fail  thee  in  its  crops,  or  be 
late  in  its  harvest,  in  another  will  the  remedy  be  found. 
Also  thy  city  being  on  the  Sarat  Canal,  provisions  will  be 
brought  thither  by  the  boats  of  the  Euphrates  and  by  the 
caravans  through  the  plains,  even  from  Egypt  and  Syria. 
Hither,  up  from  the  sea  will  come  the  wares  of  China,  while 
down  the  Tigris  from  Mosul  will  be  brought  goods  from  the 
Byzantine  lands.  Thus  shall  thy  city  be  safe  standing 
between  all  these  streams,  and  thine  enemy  shall  not  reach 


410  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

thee,  except  it  be  by  a  boat  or  by  a  bridge,  and  across  the 
Tigris  or  the  Euphrates." 

**The  practical  foresight  shown  by  the  Caliph,"  in  the 
selection  of  the  site  of  his  capital,  **has  been  amply  con- 
firmed by  the  subsequent  history  of  Bagdad.  The  city 
called  into  existence  as  by  an  enchanter 's  wand  was,  during 
the  Middle  Ages,  second  in  size  only  to  Constantinople,  and 
throughout  "Western  Asia  was  long  unrivalled  for  splendor. 
It  at  once  became  and  remained  for  all  subsequent  centuries 
the  capital  of  Mesopotamia.  Wars,  sieges,  the  removal  for 
a  time  by  the  Caliphs  of  the  seat  of  government  to  Samara, 
higher  up  the  Tigris,  even  the  almost  entire  destruction  of 
the  city  by  the  Mongols  in  A.  D.  1258,  none  of  these  have 
permanently  affected  the  supremacy  of  Bagdad  as  the 
capital  of  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates  country,  and  now, 
after  the  lapse  of  over  twelve  centuries,  the  new  Arabic 
King  of  Mesopotamia  still  resides  in  the  city  founded  by  the 
Caliph  Al-Mansur."« 

Many  etymologies,  most  of  them  fanciful,  have  been 
given  of  the  name  Bagdad.  It  is  said  that  when  Al-Mansur 
finally  selected  the  site  for  his  capital  he  found  it  occupied 
by  several  monasteries,  most  of  them  Nestorian,  and  that 
the  capital  derived  its  appellation  from  the  Arabic  word 
hagJi — garden, — and  Dad — the  name  of  a  certain  monk  who 
had  a  garden  there.  Others  aver  that  the  name  is  derived 
from  two  Persian  words,  Bagli — God, — and  Dadh — founded 
— signifying  a  city  founded  by  God.  The  oflScial  name, 
however,  given,  we  are  told  by  the  Caliph  Al-Mansur  him- 
self, was  Medina-as-Salam,  which  signifies  the  **City  of 
Peace."  But  among  the  Saracens  it  was  more  generally 
known  as  Dar-as-Salam,  which  also  signifies  City  or  Home 
of  Peace.  The  Greeks  gave  it  a  name — Eirenopolis — ^which 
is  a  literal  translation  of  the  Arabic  Dar-as-Salam.  But 
it  is  by  the  older  and  more  common  name — Bagdad — which 
is  variously  spelt — that  the  city  of  Al-Mansur  has  gener- 

« Baghdad  during  the  Abbassid  Caliphate  from  Contemporary  Arabia  and 
Persian  Sources,  pp.  12-14  (by  G.  Le  Strange,  Oxford,  1900). 


BAGDAD  I         411 

ally  been  known  from  its  foundation  to  the  present  day. 

It  was  long  thought  that  the  capital  of  the  Caliphs  had 
been  founded  on  ground  which  had  not  previously  been 
occupied  by  a  dense  population.  But  a  discovery  made  in 
1848  by  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson,  when  the  waters  of  the  Tigris 
were  exceptionally  low,  disclosed  the  surprising  fact  that 
Al-Mansur  had  founded  his  capital  on  the  site  of  a  city  that 
antedated  the  Christian  era  by  at  least  seven  centuries. 
An  extensive  facing  of  brickwork,  which  still  exists,  waa 
then  found  to  line  the  western  bank  of  the  river,  and  each 
brick  of  this  facing  bore  the  name  and  titles  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar. No  less  remarkable,  in  this  connection,  is  a  later 
discovery  in  the  Assyrian  geographical  catalogues,  belong- 
ing to  the  reign  of  Asurbanipal,  of  a  name  very  similar  to 
Bagdad  "which  probably  refers  to  the  town  then  standing 
on  the  site  afterwards  occupied  by  the  capital  of  the 
Caliphs." 

Al-Mansur  founded  his  capital,  known  from  its  peculiar 
form  as  *  *  The  Round  City, '  *  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Tigris, 
but  it  was  not  long  until  the  palaces  of  the  Caliphs  and  the 
government  offices  were  transferred  to  the  eastern  side  of 
the  river,  where  the  capital  has  since  remained,  while  the 
part  of  the  city  on  the  western  bank,  especially  the  quarter 
called  Karkh,  was  given  over  to  markets  and  merchants, 
where  **  every  merchant  and  each  merchandise  had  an 
appointed  street:  and  there  were  rows  of  shops,  and  of 
booths  and  of  courts  in  each  of  the  streets ;  but  men  of  one 
business  were  not  mixed  up  with  those  of  another,  nor 
one  merchandise  with  merchandise  of  another  sort.  Goods 
of  a  kind  were  only  sold  with  their  kind,  and  men  of  one 
trade  were  not  to  be  found  except  with  their  fellows  of 
the  same  craft.  Thus  each  market  was  kept  single  and  the 
merchants  were  divided  according  to  their  merchandise, 
each  craftsman  being  separated  from  others  not  of  his  own 
class.**' 


f  Le  Strange,  op.  oit.,  p.  «4  et  »eq. 


412  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

What  greatly  contributed  towards  the  rapid  development 
of  Bagdad  and  towards  making  it  the  great  emporium  of 
the  East,  was  the  admirable  system  of  canals  which  inter- 
sected the  rich  alluvial  plains  of  lower  Babylonia  and  which 
enabled  the  inhabitants  of  this  region  to  utilize  the  surplus 
waters  of  the  Euphrates  for  irrigating  the  fertile  lands 
which  lay  between  this  river  and  the  Tigris.  Contrary  to 
what  is  so  often  thought,  the  Arabs,  under  the  Caliphs,  gave 
as  much  attention  to  the  canalization  of  Mesopotamia  as 
had  their  predecessors,  the  Persians  and  the  Babylonians. 

But  these  canals,  besides  being  used  for  purposes  of 
irrigation,  likewise  served  for  the  transportation  of  mer- 
chandise from  distant  regions.  Thus,  to  give  a  single  in- 
stance of  their  use  for  this  purpose,  we  are  informed  that 
''great  boats  and  barges  were  loaded  at  Rakkah,  'the  port,* 
as  it  was  called,  of  the  Syrian  desert  on  the  Upper  Euphra- 
tes, there  taking  over  from  the  land-caravans  the  corn  of 
Egypt  and  the  merchandise  from  Damascus;  and  these 
boats,  coming  down  the  great  river,  and  then  along  the  Isa 
Canal,  discharged  their  cargoes  at  the  wharves  on  the  Tigris 
banks  at  the  lower  harbor  in  Karkh. ' '  * 

To  give  some  idea  of  the  fertility  of  the  irrigated  region 
of  Mesopotamia  during  the  reign  of  the  Caliphs  it  sufl&ces 
to  quote  the  words  of  an  Arabic  writer  regarding  certain 
cornlands  in  the  vicinity  of  Bagdad,  where,  we  are  told, 
"the  crops  never  failed,  neither  in  winter  nor  in  summer," 
and  of  the  report  given  of  a  certain  mill  in  which  there  were 
no  fewer  than  a  hundred  millstones  which  produced  the 
extraordinary  annual  rental  of  a  hundred  million  dirhams, 
a  sum  that  was  equivalent  to  several  million  dollars  of  our 
money. 

Marco  Polo,  that  king  of  mediaeval  travelers,  who,  by  the 
vast  compass  of  his  journeys,  was  better  qualified  than  any 
man  of  his  time  to  express  an  opinion  on  the  relative  im- 
portance of  the  cities  of  Asia,  declares  that  Bagdad — ^which 

8  Le  Strange,  op.  oit.,  p.  71. 


BAGDAD  413 

he  calls  Baudas — is  **the  noblest  and  greatest  city  of  these 
regions"  and  that  it  "used  to  be  the  seat  of  the  Caliph  of 
all  the  Saracens  in  the  world,  just  as  Eome  is  the  seat  of  the 
Pope  of  all  the  Christians.'"*  But  the  illustrious  Venetian 
voyager  did  not  visit  Bagdad  until  several  decades  after 
the  destruction  of  the  city  by  the  Mongol  hordes  under 
Hulagu  Khan. 

The  question  now  arises,  if  Bagdad  was  so  great  a 
metropolis  only  a  half  century  after  it  was  ravaged  by  the 
Mongols,  what  must  it  have  been  when  at  the  zenith  of  its 
power  and  magnificence?  Some  authors  estimate  that  the 
city  counted  no  fewer  than  two  million  souls.  D  'Herbelot, 
the  celebrated  Orientalist,  says  that  one  can  conjecture  the 
number  of  the  inhabitants  of  Bagdad  from  a  statement 
made  by  Arab  historians,  who  declare  that  the  funeral  of 
Eben  Hanbal,  a  famous  Moslem  doctor  who  died  with  a 
great  reputation  for  sanctity,  was  attended  by  eight  hun- 
dred thousand  men  and  sixty  thousand  women.^°  Then 
again,  Marco  Polo  tells  us  that  the  number  of  Christians 
in  Bagdad,  shortly  before  it  was  sacked  by  Hulagu,  was 
more  than  a  hundred  thousand.^^  This  would  indicate  that 
the  population  of  this  Saracen  city,  of  which  a  very  great 
majority  was  Mohammedan,  must  then,  in  the  days  of  its 
decline,  have  exceeded  a  million.  This  seems  clear  from 
what  historians  tell  us  about  the  **  horrible  butchery  of 
men,  women  and  children,"  which  lasted  forty  days,  when 
the  city  was  sacked  by  the  Mongols  under  Hulagu. 

Nearly  all  the  inhabitants,  to  the  number,  according  to 
Rashid  ud  Din,  of  eight  hundred  thousand — Makrizi  says 
two  million — perished,  and  thus  passed  away  one  of  the 
noblest  cities  that  had  ever  graced  the  East^ — the  cynosure 
of  the  Mohammedan  world,  where  the  luxury,  wealth  and 
culture  of  five  centuries  had  concentrated." 

»  The  Book  of  8er  Marco  Polo,  Vol.  I,  p.  63   (translated  and  edited  by  H. 
Yule.  London,  1903). 

10  Bibliothique  Orientate,  Tom.  I,  p.  326  (The  Hague,  1777). 

11  Op.  cit.,  I,  72. 

12  History  of  the  Mongols  from  the  Ninth  to  the  Nineteenth  Century,  Part 
III,  p.  127  (by  H.  H.  Howorth,  London,  1888). 


414  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

About  the  greatness  and  splendor  of  Bagdad  before  it 
was  laid  in  ashes  by  the  Mongol  invader,  there  can  be  no 
question.  The  concurrent  testimony  of  contemporary  his- 
torians puts  this  beyond  doubt.  The  walls  which  surrounded 
the  city  in  its  infancy  were  such  as  to  rival  those  of  ancient 
Babylon  and  Nineveh,  as  described  by  Herodotus  and  Dio- 
dorus  Siculus.  According  to  the  noted  Jewish  traveler, 
Benjamin  of  Tudela,  who  visited  Bagdad  in  the  second  half 
of  the  twelfth  century,  "the  palace  of  the  Caliph  of  Bagdad 
is  three  miles  in  extent." 

An  idea  of  the  magnificence  of  the  Caliph's  palaces  may 
be  gained  from  an  account  that  has  come  down  to  us  of  the 
brilliant  reception  accorded  the  Greek  ambassadors  who 
were  sent  to  Bagdad,  A.  D.  917,  by  Constantine  Porphyro- 
genitus.^'  Before  being  introduced  to  the  Commander  of 
the  Faithful,  the  envoys  were  conducted  in  state  through  the 
various  buildings  within  the  palace  precincts.  Each  of 
these  buildings,  of  which  there  were  twenty-three  in  num- 
ber, was  a  separate  palace. 

One  of  these  was  the  riding  academy,  adorned  with  por- 
ticoes of  marble  columns. 

On  the  right  side  of  this  house  stood  five  hundred  mares 
caparisoned  each  with  a  saddle  of  gold  or  silver,  while  on 
the  left  stood  five  hundred  mares  with  brocade  saddle-cloths 
and  long  head-covers;  also  every  mare  was  held  in  hand 
by  a  groom  magnificently  dressed.^* 

After  all  this,  and  leading  to  the  very  presence  of  the 
Caliph,  came  the  officers  of  state  and  the  pages  of  the  privy 
council,  all  in  gorgeous  raiment,  with  their  swords  and 
girdles  glittering  with  gold  and  gems.  Near  them  were  *'the 
eunuchs  and  the  chamberlains  and  the  black  pages." 

The  number  of  the  eunuchs  was  seven  thousand  in  all, 
four  thousand  of  them  white  and  three  thousand  black; 

18  See  Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society,  on  a  Greek  Ernbaaay  to  Bagdad 
917,  A.  D    (January,  1897). 
1*  Cf.  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  Chap.  LII. 


BAGDAD  415 

the  number  of  the  chamberlains  was  also  seven  thousand,  and 
the  number  of  the  black  pages,  other  than  the  eunuchs,  was 
four  thousand.  ...  On  the  Tigris  there  were  skiffs  and 
wherries,  barques  and  barges  and  other  boats,  all  magnifi- 
cently ornamented,  duly  arranged  and  disposed.  .  .  .  The 
number  of  the  hangings  in  the  palaces  of  the  Caliph  was 
thirty-eight  thousand.  These  were  curtains  of  gold— of 
brocade  embroidered  with  gold— all  magnificently  figured 
with  representations  of  drinking  vessels  and  with  elephants 
and  horses,  camels,  lions  and  birds.  .  .  .  The  number  of 
the  carpets  and  the  mats  was  twenty-two  thousand  pieces ; 
these  were  laid  in  the  corridors  and  courts.  .  .  .*' 

A  hundred  lions  were  brought  out,  every  lion  being  held  in 
by  the  hand  of  its  keeper.  Among  other  spectacles  of  rare 
and  stupendous  luxury  was  a  tree  of  gold  and  silver.  The 
tree  had  eighteen  branches,  every  branch  having  numerous 
twigs,  on  which  sat  all  kinds  of  gold  and  silver  birds,  both 
large  and  small.  Most  of  the  branches  of  this  tree  were  of 
silver,  but  some  were  of  gold,  and  they  spread  into  the  air 
carrying  leaves  of  divers  colors.  The  leaves  of  the  tree 
moved  as  the  wind  blew,  while  the  birds,  under  the  action 
of  mechanical  appliances,  piped  and  sang.  Through  this 
scene  of  magnificence  the  Greek  ambassadors  were  led  to 
the  foot  of  the  Caliph's  throne. 

The  impression  made  on  the  ambassador  and  his  suite 
at  the  sight  of  such  a  display  of  wealth  and  luxury  was,  we 
may  well  believe,  not  unlike  that  produced  on  the  Spanish 
Conquistadores  at  the  sight  of  the  vast  treasures  of  Cuzco 
and  Cajamarca,  or  on  the  astonished  ambassadors  of  for- 
eign powers  when  they  were  admitted  to  the  presence  of 
Abd-al-Rahman  III  in  his  gorgeous  audience  chamber  in  the 
famed  palace  of  Medina-al-Zahra." 

18  At  this  period,  Sir  Richard  Burton  tells  us,  London  and  Paris  were  in 
a  state  of  quasi-savagery  and  "their  palatial  halls  were  spread  with  rushes." 

16  Bagdad,  at  the  zenith  of  its  grandeur  under  Harun-al-Rashid,  was  the 
worthy  successor  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh,  It  "had  outrivalled  Damascus, 
'the  Smile  of  the  Prophet,'  "  and  "was  essentially  a  city  of  pleasure,  a  Paris 
of  the  ninth  century."  "Thither  flocked  from  all  parts  of  the  oriental  world 
the  most  noted  and  capable  poets,  musicians  and  artificers  of  the  time}  and 


416  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

But  Bagdad  has  more  compelling  claims  to  undying  fame 
than  those  based  on  gorgeous  palaces,  superb  mosques, 
boundless  luxury,  and  ostentatious  displays  of  fabulous 
wealth.  This  splendid  capital  of  the  Caliphs  will  always 
live  in  history's  page  as  the  seat  of  numerous  and  splendid 
institutions  of  charity  and  education  and  as  the  home  of 
Caliphs  who  were  the  most  munificent  patrons  of  science 
and  letters  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Among  the  hospitals  of  Bagdad  was  a  palatial  structure 
with  many  rooms  and  wards,  which  were  furnished  in  elab- 
orate style.  Here  the  patients  were  gratuitously  provided 
with  food  and  medicine  and  regularly  visited  by  the  physi- 
cians of  the  city.  It  was  here  that  Rhazes,  the  most  cele- 
brated Mussulman  physician  of  his  time,  gave  his  lectures 
and  founded  the  great  medical  school  which  drew  students 
from  all  parts  of  Western  Asia.  Rhazes  is  famous  not  only 
for  his  eminence  as  a  physician  but  also  as  a  voluminous 
writer  on  medicine  and  for  having  described  smallpox 
nearly  nine  hundred  years  before  Jenner  began  his  noted 
investigations  on  this  dread  disease. 

It  was,  however,  the  colleges,  of  which  there  were  more 
than  thirty — *  *  each  more  magnificent  than  a  palace ' ' — that 
gave  Bagdad  its  greatest  fame  in  the  mediaeval  world.  One 
of  these,  called  the  Nizamiyah,  founded  by  an  eminent  vizier 


the  first  thought  of  the  Arabian  or  Persian  craftsman  who  had  completed  some 
specially  curious  or  attractive  specimen  of  his  art  was  to  repair  to  the  capital 
of  the  Muslim  world,  to  submit  it  to  the  Commander  of  the  Faithful  from 
whom  he  rarely  failed  to  receive  a  rich  reward  for  his  labors.  Surrounded  by 
pleasure-gardens  and  groves  of  orange,  tamarisk,  and  myrtle,  refreshed  by  an 
unfailing  luxuriance  of  running  streams,  supplied  either  by  art  or  nature,  the 
great  city  on  the  Tigris  is  the  theme  of  many  an  admiring  ode  or  laudatory 
ghazel;  and  the  poets  of  the  time  all  agree  in  describing  it  as  being,  under 
the  rule  of  the  great  Caliph,  a  ,  sort  of  terrestrial  paradise  of  idlesse  and 
luxury,  where,  to  use  their  own  expressions,  the  ground  was  irrigated  with 
rose-water  and  the  dust  of  the  roads  was  musk,  where  flowers  and  verdure 
overhung  the  ways  and  the  air  was  perpetually  sweet  with  the  many-voiced 
song  of  birds,  and  where  the  chirp  of  lutes,  the  dulcet  warble  of  flutes  and 
the  silver  sound  of  singing  houris  rose  and  fell  in  harmonious  cadence  from 
every  corner  of  the  streets  of  palaces  that  stood  in  vast  succession  in  the 
midst  of  their  gardens  and  orchards,  gifted  with  perpetual  verdure  by  the 
silver  abundance  of  the  Tigris,  as  it  sped  its  arrowy  flight  through  the  thrice- 
blest  town."  Thousand  and  One  Nights,  Vol.  IX,  pp.  333,  334  (translated  by 
John  Payne,  London,  1884). 


BAGDAD  417 

who  was  the  friend  of  the  poet  Omar  Khayyam,  was,  on 
account  of  its  architectural  splendor,  and  the  celebrity  of 
its  professional  staff,  known  as  the  **  Mother  of  the  colleges 
of  Bagdad.'*  Among  its  most  illustrious  lecturers  were 
Ghazzali,  celebrated  as  a  philosopher  and  a  theologian,  and 
Bohadin,  who  achieved  eminence  as  a  historian,  as  a  states- 
man, and  as  the  biographer  of  the  Sultan  Saladin.  The 
endowment  of  the  Nizamiyah  was  so  princely  that  it  sufficed 
not  only  to  pay  the  salaries  of  the  professors  but  also  to 
pay  for  the  board  and  tuition  of  indigent  students. 

Completely  eclipsing  the  Nizamiyah  College  in  its  archi- 
tectural grandeur,  sumptuous  equipment,  and  wealth  of 
endowment  was  the  College  of  the  Mustansiriyah — the  ruins 
of  which  still  exist — which  was  founded  by  the  Caliph 
Mustansir,  the  father  of  Mustasim,  who  was  put  to  death 
by  Hulago  after  the  destruction  of  Bagdad.  So  great  was 
the  splendor  of  this  college  that  it  is  said  to  have  surpassed 
any  similar  institution  in  Islam.  It  was  not  only  the  most 
notable  seat  of  learning  in  Bagdad,  but  was  also  its  most 
beautiful  and  imposing  edifice.  When  one  recalls  the  many 
gorgeous  palaces  of  the  city — many  of  them  costing  fabu- 
lous sums — one  can  realize  what  munificent  patrons  were 
Bagdad's  Caliph  and  men  of  wealth  and  how  well  this  fairy 
capital  deserved  its  reputation  as  the  Orient 's  most  famous 
center  of  science  and  letters.  It  had  only  one  rival  and 
that  was  the  famous  Ommaied  metropolis  in  Spain,  so 
celebrated  for  its  riches  and  attractions,  its  schools  and 
libraries  and  scholars — a  city  which  Hroswitha,  the  gifted 
nun  of  Gandersheim,  has  so  beautifully  described  in  a  single 
distich : 

Corduba  famosa,  locuples  de  nomine  dicta, 
Inclyta  deliciis,  rebus  quoque  splendida  cunctis. 

But  no  description  of  Bagdad  is  complete  without  some 
account  of  its  more  eminent  Caliphs,  especially  of  its  im- 
mortal Harun-Al-Rashid,  who  is  "inseparably  associated 
with  the  most  charming  collection  of  stories  ever  invented 


418  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

for  the  solace  and  delight  of  mankind."  This  brilliant 
Saracen  ruler  has  long  been  ranked  among  the  illustrious 
men  of  all  time.  For,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  from 
time  immemorial  legends  have  gathered  around  his  name 
in  greater  number  than  about  those  of  King  Arthur,  or 
Charlemagne,  or  Frederick  Barbarossa,  authentic  history 
tells  us  enough  of  his  character  and  achievements  to  make 
the  romantic  life  of  ** Aaron  the  Just" — to  Anglicize  his 
name — one  of  supreme  fascination  and  abiding  interest. 

The  Arabians  [Sismondi  writes]  are  indebted  to  him  for 
the  rapid  progress  which  they  made  in  science  and  litera- 
ture, for  Harun  never  built  a  mosque  without  attaching  to 
it  a  school.  His  successors  followed  his  example,  and  in  a 
short  period  the  sciences  which  were  cultivated  in  the  capital 
spread  themselves  to  the  very  extremities  of  the  empire  of 
the  Caliphs.  Whenever  the  faithful  assembled  to  adore 
the  Divinity,  they  found  in  this  temple  an  opportunity  of 
rendering  Him  the  noblest  homage  which  His  creatures  can 
pay — ^by  the  cultivation  of  those  faculties  with  which  their 
Creator  has  endowed  them.  Harun- Al-Rashid,  besides,  was 
sufficiently  superior  to  the  fanaticism  which  had  previously 
animated  his  sect  not  to  despise  the  knowledge  which  the 
professors  of  another  faith  possessed.  The  head  of  his 
schools  and  the  first  director  of  studies  in  his  empire  was  a 
Nestorian  Christian  of  Damascus,  of  the  name  of  John 
Ebn  Mesua." 

Christians  were  the  translators  of  the  works  of  Plato 
and  Aristotle ;  of  Galen,  Hippocrates,  and  Dioscorides ;  of 
Ptolemy,  Euclid,  and  ApoUonius  Pergseus. 

Nb  Caliph  ever  gathered  round  him  so  great  a  number  of 
learned  men: — poets,  jurists,  grammarians,  cadis  and 
scribes, — to  say  nothing  of  the  wits  and  musicians  who 
enjoyed  his  patronage.  Personally,  too,  he  had  every 
quality  that  could  recommend  him  to  the  literary  men  of 
his  time.    Harun  himself  was  an  accomplished  scholar  and 

IT  Historical  View  of  the  Literature  of  the  South  of  Europe,  VoL  I,  p.  80 
(New  York,  1827). 


BAGDAD  419 

an  excellent  poet ;  he  was  well  versed  in  history,  tradition 
and  poetry  which  he  could  always  quote  on  appropriate 
occasions.  He  possessed  exquisite  literary  taste  and  unerr- 
ing discernment  and  his  dignified  demeanor  made  him  an 
object  of  profound  respect  to  high  and  low.^' 

He  was,  indeed,  as  described  by  his  biographers,  "the 
most  accomplished,  eloquent  and  generous  of  the  Caliphs," 
and  the  stories  that  are  told  of  his  lavish  generosity  towards 
scholars  who  frequented  his  court  proved  that  he  was  prob- 
ably the  most  munificent  patron  of  men  of  science  and 
letters  that  ever  lived. 

And  yet,  sad  to  relate,  there  is  a  dark  spot  in  the  career 
of  Harun-al-Rashid.  This  is  due  to  his  inhuman  treatment 
of  the  Barmecides,  whose  tragic  fate  at  the  hands  of  the 
Caliph  is  one  of  the  most  shocking  occurrences  in  oriental 
annals.  One  of  this  ill-fated  family,  Yaya  ibin  Barmek, 
was  Harun^s  vizier,  who,  by  his  consummate  ability,  had 
contributed  more  than  any  other  man  towards  the  success 
of  the  Caliph's  reign.  It  was  he,  and  not  the  Commander  of 
the  Faithful,  who  directed  the  course  of  events  that  ren- 
dered the  reign  of  Harun-al-Eashid  the  culminating  point 
of  Islamic  history.  His  son  Jaafer  was  the  most  cherished 
friend  of  the  Caliph  and  his  constant  companion  in  his 
nightly  incognito  wanderings  through  the  city  of  Bagdad. 
**Harun's  attachment  to  Jaafer  was  of  so  extravagant  a 
character  that  he  could  never  bear  him  to  be  absent  from 
his  side,  and  he  went  to  the  absurd  length  of  having  a  cloak 
made  with  two  collars,  so  that  he  and  Jaafer  could  wear  it 
at  one  and  the  same  time. ' '  ^' 

But  to  wipe  out  a  fancied  indignity  he  did  not  hesitate 
foully  to  murder  his  friend  and  companion,  "by  far  the 
most  lovable  and  attractive  character  of  the  many  that  live 
for  us  in  the  Thousand  and  One  NightsJ^'^    He  cast  his  old 


i»  Haroun-AhRaachid,  Caliph  of  Bagdad,  p.  53  (by  E.  H.  Palmer,  London, 
1881). 

19  Palmer,  op.  cit.,  p.  83. 

20  This  crime,  declares  Sir  Richard  Burton,  "standB  out  in  ghastly  promi* 


420  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

and  loyal  vizier,  the  father  of  Jaafer,  into  prison.  Not 
content  with  this  barbarous  treatment  of  men  to  whom  he 
owed  so  much,  he  vented  his  fury  on  their  family  and  did 
not  abate  his  anger  until  he  had  slain  more  than  a  thousand 
of  the  Barmecides.  So  great  an  impression  did  Harun's 
atrocious  treatment  of  his  best  friends  make  on  his  con- 
temporaries that  it  became  **the  proverbial  example  in 
oriental  history  of  the  change  of  fortune  and  the  mutability 
of  royal  favor."  It  is  because  of  this  barbarous  cruelty 
and  his  revolting  treachery  that  the  Harun  of  history  is  so 
unlike  the  Harun  of  legend,  in  which  he  is  always  painted 
as  a  merry  monarch — the  patron  of  scholars  and  the  boon 
companion  of  congenial  friends.  And  it  is  because  of  this 
that  we  must  refuse  him  his  long-accorded  title  of  **The 
Just"  and  **The  Good,"  although,  in  view  of  his  achieve- 
ments as  a  ruler  and  his  unfailing  and  generous  patronage 
of  men  of  science  and  letters,  we  cannot  deny  him  the 
epithet  of  **The  Great."  Were  it  not  for  the  stain  on  his 
escutcheon,  due  to  his  infamous  treatment  of  the  Barme- 
cides, we  could,  with  some  semblance  of  truth,  say  of  this 
illustrious  Caliph  of  Bagdad,  in  the  words  of  Tennyson : 

Sole  star  of  all  that  place  and  time, 
I  saw  him  in  his  golden  prime, 
The  Good  Harun-al-Rashid. 

One  cannot  speak  of  the  services  rendered  to  science  and 
literature  by  Harun-al-Rashid  without  referring  to  his 
distinguished  son  and  successor,  the  Caliph  Al-Mamun. 
Although  the  power  and  the  greatness  of  the  empire  had 
suffered  a  notable  diminution  after  the  death  of  Al-Rashid, 
the  glory  of  Bagdad  as  a  center  of  learning  still  retained 
all  its  former  luster.  Some,  indeed,  will  have  it  that  its 
prestige  was  enhanced  and  that  Al-Mamun  and  not  Harun 
was  the  father  of  letters  and  the  Augustus  of  the  Abbasside 
Caliphate.    For  the  first  thing  he  did  on  ascending  the 

uence  as  one  of  the  most  terrible  tragedies  recorded  in  history  and  its  horrible 
details  make  men  write  passionately  on  the  subject  to  this  our  day."  Thousand 
and  One  Nights,  Vol.  X,  p.  142  (Benares,  1885). 


BAGDAD  421 

throne  was  to  invite  the  Muses  from  their  favorite  seats  in 
the  Byzantine  Empire  to  the  capital  of  the  Caliphs  on  the 
Tigris. 

Study,  books  and  men  of  letters  almost  entirely  engrossed 
his  attention.  The  learned  were  his  favorites  and  his  min- 
isters were  occupied  alone  in  forwarding  the  progress  of 
literature.  It  might  be  said  that  the  throne  of  the  CaUphs 
seemed  to  have  been  raised  for  the  Muses.  He  invited  to 
his  court  from  all  parts  of  the  world  all  the  learned  with 
whose  existence  he  was  acquainted,  and  he  retained  them 
by  rewards,  honors  and  distinctions  of  every  kind.  He 
collected  from  the  subject  provinces  of  Syria,  Armenia  and 
Egypt  the  most  important  books  which  could  be  discovered, 
and  which,  in  his  eyes,  were  the  most  precious  tribute  he 
could  demand.  The  governors  of  provinces  and  the  officers 
of  administration  were  directed  to  amass  in  preference  to 
everything  else  the  literary  relics  of  the  conquered  countries 
and  to  carry  them  to  the  foot  of  the  throne.  Hundreds  of 
camels  might  be  seen  entering  Bagdad  loaded  with  nothing 
but  manuscripts  and  papers  and  those  which  were  thought 
to  be  adapted  for  the  purpose  of  public  instruction  were 
translated  into  Arabic  that  they  might  be  universally  intel- 
ligible. Masters,  instructors,  translators,  and  commentators 
formed  the  court  of  Al-Mamun,  which  appeared  to  be 
rather  a  learned  academy  than  the  centre  of  government  in 
a  warlike  empire.  When  the  Caliph  dictated  the  terms  of 
peace  to  the  Greek  Emperor,  Michael  the  Stammerer,  the 
tribute  which  he  demanded  from  him  was  a  collection  of 
Greek  authors." 

History  was  but  repeating  itself,  for,  as  in  the  days 
of  ancient  Kome,  so  also  in  the  most  brilliant  period  of 
Bagdad 

Grcecia  capta  ferum  viciorem  cepit  et  artes 
Intulit  agresti  LaiioP 

21  Siemondi,  op.  cit.,  I,  30. 

22  Tamed  Greece  to  tame  her  victress  now  began, 
And  imth  her  arts  fair  Latium  over-ran. 

HoBACE,  Epittles,  Book  II,  1.  ^ 


422  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

So  great  during  this  brilliant  literary  period  was  the  love 
of  learning  that  there  were  in  Bagdad  more  than  a  hundred 
booksellers.  How  many  of  our  modern  cities  could  count 
so  great  a  number?  And  so  large  were  even  private 
libraries  that  we  are  told  of  a  doctor  of  Bagdad  who  **  re- 
fused the  invitation  of  the  Sultan  of  Bokhara,  because  the 
carriage  of  his  books  would  have  required  four  hundred 
camels. ' ' " 

Nor  was  it  in  Bagdad  alone  that  the  zeal  of  Harun  and 
Mamun  for  the  progress  of  knowledge  had  stimulated 
enthusiasm  for  science  and  letters.  Under  these  two  illus- 
trious patrons  of  learning,  homes  of  science  that  almost 
equaled  that  of  Bagdad  were  established  in  all  parts  of  the 
Caliphate — in  Cufa  and  Basra;  in  Fez  and  Morocco;  in 
Cairo  and  Alexandria  and  Damascus ;  in  Balk,  Ispahan,  and 
Samarcand — ^many  of  which,  in  the  splendor  of  their  build- 
ings'and  in  the  equipment  of  their  libraries,  rivaled  the 
famous  Arabian  schools  of  Granada,  Seville,  and  Cordoba, 
which  were  in  their  heyday  "when  all  that  was  polite  or 
elegant  in  literature  was  classed  among  the  Studia  Ara- 
bum/'  And  it  is  to  be  observed  that  these  institutions, 
created  and  fostered  by  the  benign  influence  of  the  Caliphs, 
had  reached  the  acme  of  their  glory  when  the  greater  part 
of  western  and  northern  Europe  was  in  a  condition  of  com- 
parative darkness. 

But  in  paying  this  tribute  to  the  Caliphs  of  Bagdad — 
especially  Harun-Al-Rashid  and  his  son  Al-Mamun — I  do 
not  wish  to  appear  as  overrating  their  achievements  in 
science  and  letters.  One  may,  indeed,  concede  that  they 
always  held  literary  excellence  in  the  highest  honor;  one 
may  admit  that  never,  not  even  in  the  days  of  Maecenas  and 
Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  did  men  of  letters  receive  greater 
encouragement  and  rewards;  one  may  acknowledge  that 
for  centuries  the  Saracens  were  far  in  advance  of  many  of 
the  western  nations  of  Christendom  in  many  branches 
of  science  and  philosophy,  but,  granting  all  this,  the  indis- 

2«  Gibbon,  op.  cit.,  Chap.  LII. 


BAGDAD  423 

putable  fact  still  remains  that  they  were  borrowers  and  not 
originators. 

All  their  achievements  in  philosophy,  medicine,  astron- 
omy, and  mathematics  were  due  to  their  Greek  masters — 
to  Plato  and  Aristotle;  to  Galen  and  Dioscorides;  to  Hip- 
parchus  and  Ptolemy;  to  Euclid,  Archimedes,  and  Eratos- 
thenes. And  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Saracens 
owed  their  knowledge  of  Greek  science  to  Christians,  for 
it  was  Christians  who  translated  for  them  the  works  which 
they  were  unable  to  read  in  the  original.  Thus  it  was 
the  Christian  scholar  Honein,  who  was  the  physician  to  the 
E[halif  Motowakkel,  that  translated  into  Arabic  the  "Ele- 
ments" of  Euclid  and  the  ''Almagest"  of  Ptolemy;  and  it 
was  his  pupils  who  made  the  Arabic  versions  of  the  greater 
number  of  the  works  of  Galen  and  Hippocrates."  And  it 
was  to  the  celebrated  Christian  family,  the  Boktishos,  and 
to  the  Nestorian  school  of  Gondisapor,  from  which  issued 
so  many  scholars  of  distinction,  that  the  Saracens  were 
indebted  for  versions  of  countless  other  works  of  Greek 
science  and  philosophy. 

Among  the  many  learned  men  whom  the  Caliph  Al- 
Mamun  invited  to  his  court  and  *'who  contributed  far  more 
than  his  own  subjects  to  the  reputation  that  sovereign  has 
deservedly  gained  in  the  history  of  science,"  was  Leo  the 
Mathematician,  who  subsequently  became  the  Archbishop 
of  Thessalonica.  The  Caliph  desired  to  have  made  an 
accurate  measurement  of  the  earth's  orbit  and  he  called 
this  distinguished  Greek  to  his  court  to  take  charge  of  this 
important  work  because  *'he  was  universally  recognized  to 
be  the  superior  to  all  the  scientific  men  of  Bagdad  in  mathe- 
matical and  mechanical  knowledge."" 

But  while  the  Arabs  were  good  borrowers  from  Greek 
writers  on  medicine,  astronomy,  and  mathematics,  they 
almost  completely  ignored  the  great  poets,  orators,  and 
historigms  of  ancient  Hejlas.    Never  cultivating  any  lan- 


2*866  D'Herbelot's  Bibliothique  Orientate,  a.  v.  "Honain." 

28  Of.  A  History  of  Greece,  Vol.  II,  p.  224  (by  G.  Finlay,  Oxford,  1877J. 


424  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

guage  but  their  own,  they  were  unable  to  read  the  master- 
pieces of  Greek  literature  except  in  a  translation,  but  as 
there  was  no  demand  by  the  Saracens  for  translations  of 
these  works  into  Arabic,  none  were  ever  made.  For  this 
reason  the  matchless  poems  of  Homer  and  the  Greek 
dramatists;  the  orations  of  Lysias  and  Demosthenes;  the 
histories  of  Herodotus  and  Trucidides,  were  for  the  Sara- 
cens as  so  many  closed  books.  The  noted  Syriac  author, 
Bar-Herbrasus,  does,  indeed,  mention  a  version  of  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey  by  a  Christian  Maronite  of  Mount  Lebanon, 
but  his  translation  was  into  Syriac  and  not  Arabic. 

These  facts  show  how  much  the  great  reputation  of  the 
Saracens  for  learning  was  due  to  their  immortal  Greek 
masters  and  to  the  literary  activity  of  their  Christian  sub- 
jects, especially  the  Greeks  of  the  Lower  Empire.  It  is 
true,  as  Freeman  observes,  that  *Hhe  Arabs  studied  Aris- 
totle and  taught  him  to  the  men  of  western  Europe ;  but  it 
was  surely  from  the  men  of  eastern  Europe  that  they 
obtained  him  in  the  first  instance.  He  was  read  in  transla- 
tions at  Samarcand  and  at  Lisbon,  when  no  one  knew  his 
name  at  Oxford  or  Edinburgh;  but  all  the  while  he  con- 
tinued to  be  read  in  his  own  tongue  at  Constantinople  and 
Thessalonica. ' ' " 

The  impulse  that  Harun-al-Rashid  and  his  son  Al- 
Mamun  gave  to  educational  progress  by  encouraging  the 
translation  of  the  works  of  Aristotle,  Galen,  Ptolemy,  and 
others  of  the  great  Greek  masters  will  always  give  their 
reigns  a  conspicuous  place  in  the  annals  of  science  and 
civilization.  But  the  successors  of  these  two  illustrious 
monarchs  did  not  follow  in  their  footsteps.  Although  the 
power  of  the  Caliphate  seemed  still  unimpaired  and  its 
splendor  was  apparently  undimmed,  the  seeds  of  decay, 
which  led  to  ultimate  destruction,  were  already  at  work. 
The  vices  of  sloth  and  luxury  and  cruelty  which  prevailed 
at  the  court  and  in  many  of  the  most  important  departments 

28  TAe  History  and  Conquests  of  the  Saracens,  p.  157  (London,  1877). 


BAGDAD  425 

of  the  government  of  the  Caliphate,  slowly  but  surely  en- 
tailed their  fatal  consequences.  Besides  these,  there  were 
other  causes  of  decay  and  extinction.  Chief  among  them 
were  internecine  strife  and  the  separation  of  the  remoter 
provinces  from  the  central  power.  Added  to  these  dis- 
integrating factors  the  Caliphate  had  become  top-heavy, 
and  under  a  weak  and  degenerate  ruler  like  Al-Mostassem, 
the  last  of  the  Abbassides,  its  downfall  was  inevitable. 
•  In  contemplating  the  fall  of  the  power  which  was  for  five 
centuries  the  glory  of  the  Moslem  world,  one  is  led  to  com- 
pare the  close  of  the  reign  of  the  last  of  the  Caliphs  with 
that  of  the  last  of  the  Byzantine  Emperors : 

The  last  and  weakest  of  the  Caliphs  without  an  effort  of 
arms  or  policy  to  stay  his  fall,  sinks  from  senseless  pride 
to  craven  terror  and  expires  amidst  the  tortures  of  a  faith- 
less victor.  The  last  and  noblest  of  the  Caesars,  after  doing 
all  that  mortal  man  could  do  for  the  deliverance  of  his  city, 
himself  dies  in  the  breach,  the  foremost  among  its  defenders. 
Not  Darius  in  the  hands  of  the  traitor,  not  Augustulus 
resigning  his  useless  purple,  not  the  -^theling  Edgar 
spared  by  the  contempt  of  the  Norman  Conqueror  ever 
showed  fallen  greatness  so  dishonored  and  unpitied  as  did 
Al-Mostassem  Billah  al  Wahid,  the  last  Commander  of  the 
Faithful ; "  not  Leonidas  in  the  pass  of  Thermopylas,  not 
Decius  in  the  battle  below  Vesuvius,  not  our  own  Harold 

27  Longfellow  has  chosen  the  grim  episode  said  to  have  been  connected  with 
the  tragic  death  of  Al-Mostassem  at  the  hands  of  Hulagu  Khan  for  one  of  his 
well-known  poems  in  which  he  makes  his  victor  and  executioner  address  tho 
avaricious  Caliph  in  the  following  words : 

/  said  to  the  Caliph,  "Thou  art  old. 

Thou  hast  no  need  of  so  much  gold; 

Thou  shouldst  not  have  heaped  and  hidden  it  here. 

Till  the  breath  of  battle  was  hot  and  near. 

But  have  sown  through  the  land  these  useless  hoardSf 

To  spring  into  shining  blades  and  swords. 

And  keep  thine  honor  sweet  and  clear." 

Then  into  his  dungeon  I  locked  the  drone. 
And  left  him  there  to  feed  all  alone, 
In  the  honey  cells  of  his  golden  hive; 
Never  a  prayer,  nor  a  cry,  nor  a  groan. 
Was  heard  from  those  massive  walls  of  stones 
Nor  again  was  the  Caliph  seen  alive. 


426  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

upon  the  hill  of  Senlac,  died  a  more  glorious  death  than 
Constantine  Palseologus,  the  last  Emperor  of  the  Romans.^' 


Among  the  names  given  to  Bagdad,  as  has  been  said  in 
a  preceding  page,  was  that  of  Dar-as-Salam,  or  Medina-as- 
Salam — City  of  Peace.  In  view  of  the  numerous  vicissi- 
tudes through  which  the  erstwhile  capital  of  the  Caliphs  has 
passed,  the  protracted  sieges  it  has  sustained,  the  frightful 
destruction  it  has  time  and  again  undergone,  the  appalling 
massacres  of  its  inhabitants  at  the  hands  of  bloodthirsty 
invaders,  it  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  a  more  prepos- 
terous misnomer. 

We  have  seen  what  was  the  fate  of  the  city  when  it  was 
given  over  to  the  savage  and  rapacious  hordes  of  Hulagu 
Khan.  But  this  reign  of  terror  was  but  a  prelude  to  the 
horrors  that  befell  the  ill-fated  city  when,  less  than  a  century 
and  a  half  later,  the  brutal  Mongols  again  captured  and 
sacked  the  city;  when  its  streets  streamed  with  the  blood 
of  its  defenders  and  reechoed  with  the  frenzied  shrieks  of 
women  and  children,  and  when,  as  a  climax  of  all  this  un- 
utterable carnage,'^*  the  Mongol  leader,  Timur,  celebrated 
his  bloody  victory  by  erecting  on  the  ruins  of  Bagdad  a 
gruesome  pyramid  of  ninety  thousand  heads  of  its  slaugh- 
tered inhabitants.*" 

No  wonder  that  the  people  of  the  East  were  wont  to 
declare  that  **  conquest  by  Turks  or  Saracens  was  a  bless- 
ing compared  with  falling  into  the  jaws  of  the  implacable 
Mongols.'*  When  word  reached  the  Court  of  Byzantium 
that  the  Mongols,  under  Timur,  were  approaching  the  city, 
so  great  was  the  terror  which  they  inspired  that  *  *  popular 


28  Freeman,  op.  cit.,  p.  132. 

20  "Tamerlan  fit  passer  au  fil  de  I'ep^e  tous  ses  Habitants,  n'  epargnant  ni 
age,  ni  sexe,  ni  condition  et  fit  raser  rez  pied,  rez  terre  tous  ses  principaux 
batimens."     D'Herbelot,  op.  cit.,  s.  v,  "Timour." 

•0  Cf.  Gibbon,  op.  cit.,  Chap.  LXV.  "The  ground  which  had  been  occupied 
by  flourishing  cities  was  often  marked  by  his" — Timour's — "abominable  trophies 
— ^by  columns  or  pyramids  of  human  heads."  Ibid.,  Chap.  LXV.  "The  people 
of  Ispahan  supplied  seventy  thousand  human  skulls  for  the  structure  of  several 
lofty  towers."    Ibid.,  Chap.  XXXIV. 


BAGDAD  427 

rumor  painted  the  invaders  as  having  dogs*  heads  and 
eating  human  flesh.'*** 

When,  in  addition  to  all  these  atrocities,  one  recalls  the 
deeds  of  violence  and  savagery  which  afterwards  followed 
the  successive  storming  and  occupation  of  the  unfortunate 
city  by  Turkomans,  Persians,  and  Turks,  one  must  conclude 
that  the  proper  epithet  for  Bagdad  would  have  been  not 
Dar-as-Salam — City  of  Peace — but  Dar-al-Harb — City  of 
War. 

**But  what,"  the  reader  inquires,  **of  modern  Bagdad, 
of  the  Bagdad  of  to-day"?  Since  the  Muses  left  the  fair 
capital  of  the  Caliphs,  long  centuries  ago,  little  more  of 
interest  remains  in  it  than  may  be  found  in  any  other  city 
of  the  Moslem  East. 

My  first  hurried  view  of  Bagdad  was  in  the  parting 
splendor  of  sunset, 

When  her  shrines  through  the  foliage  were  gleaming  half  shown, 
And  each  hallow' d  the  hour  hy  some  rites  of  its  own. 

My  eyes  were  then  open  only  to  what  was  beautiful, 
romantic,  picturesque. 

My  second  view  was  on  the  following  morning,  from  the 
terrace  of  the  Carmelite  monastery.  It  was  at  the  hour 
when  the  sun,  in  the  words  of  Omar  Elhayydm,  was  scat- 
tering 

Into  flight 
The  Stars  before  him  from  the  Field  of  Night, 

A  filmy  veil  of  pearl-gray  mist  hung  over  the  slumbering 
city  and  the  witchery  of  the  scene  was  even  more  enthrall- 
ing than  that  which  so  captivated  me  the  preceding  evening. 
Presently 

The  magic  of  daylight  awakes 
A  new  wonder  each  minute,  as  it  slowly  breaks; 
Hills,  cupolas,  fountains,  called  forth  every  one 
Out  of  darkness,  as  if  just  born  of  the  Sun. 

n  Howorth,  op.  cit.,  Part  III,  p.  1. 


428  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Yes,  I  was  in  Bagdad,  the  fairy  city  of  boyhood's  dreams, 
the  glittering  home  of  pomp  and  pleasure,  where  the  fair 
Zobeide  dwelt  in  a  palace  with  spangled  floors  and  marble 
stairs  with  golden  balustrades;  where  there  was  a  riot  of 
broidered  sofas,  damask  curtains,  silk  tapestry,  purple 
robes  from  the  most  famous  looms  of  the  East;  where  a 
joyous  group  of  bejeweled  dancing  girls  were  wont,  to  the 
sound  of  harp  and  lute  and  dulcimer,  to  carol  away,  with 
voices  as  melodious  as  that  of  Israfel,  the  cares  and  ennui 
of  their  pleasure-sated  mistress. 

Willingly  I  yielded  myself  to  the  hypnotic  influence  of 
the  spiritus  loci.  In  fancy  I  saw  Aladdin  with  his  won- 
derful lamp ;  the  one-eyed  calenders  as  they  told  their  fas- 
cinating tales;  the  fishermen  as  they  deluded  the  heavy- 
witted  jinn;  Harun-al-Rashid  and  Jaffer  as  they  wan- 
dered under  their  double-collared  cloak  through  the  som- 
ber streets  of  the  capital;  the  radiant  homes  of  wealth 
and  luxury,  which  gleamed  with  the  subdued  light  of  a 
myriad  of  golden  lamps  and  reechoed  with  the  heart-easing 
strains  of  sweet  music  and  the  gladsome  voices  of  mid- 
night revelry. 

But  the  illusion  was  of  short  duration.  The  mauve-shot 
veil  of  tenuous  mist  lifted  under  the  ardent  rays  of  the 
morning  sun  and  the  magic  city  of  Harun  and  his  favorite 
Zobeide  vanished  to  give  place  to  the  squalid  houses,  nar- 
row, crooked  streets,  and  crumbling  walls  of  a  time-stricken, 
war-battered  city  which  is  now  but  a  shadow  of  what  it  was 
in  the  days  of  its  pristine  glory. 

As  a  compliment  to  our  hosts  we  did  not  even  express  a 
wish  to  explore  the  city,  which  we  had  come  so  far  to  see, 
until  we  had  visited  their  schools  and  those  conducted  by 
their  heroic  coworkers,  the  Sisters  of  the  Visitation  of 
Tours.  After  having  spent  several  most  delightful  hours 
with  teachers  and  pupils  we  sent  for  a  trio  of  those  white 
donkeys  for  which  Bagdad  is  so  celebrated.  Gentle  as  they 
are  strong  and  hardy,  they  willingly  keep  up  an  easy, 
ambling  gait  for  hours  at  a  time  without  exhibiting  the 


BAGDAD  429 

slightest  evidence  of  fatigue.  I  learned  to  value  them  a 
third  of  a  century  ago  when  traveling  in  Egypt  and  I  was 
glad  to  have  an  opportunity  of  again  availing  myself  of 
their  service  in  the  old  capital  on  the  Tigris.  Here  they 
take  the  place  of  cabs  which  would  not  be  at  all  available 
in  the  majority  of  the  very  narrow  streets  of  the  city. 

As  the  Carmelite  monastery  is  in  the  heart  of  the  city, 
we  soon  found  ourselves  in  the  midst  of  a  colorful  scene 
that  could  not  be  surpassed  by  anything  similar  either  in 
Damascus  or  Stamboul.  Such  a  seething  cauldron  of  races, 
such  an  utter  confusion  of  tongues,  such  a  motley  carnival 
of  costumes  from  plain  white  and  black  to  the  gay  fabrics 
of  Madras  and  the  tawdry  prints  of  Manchester!  Here 
we  meet  men  of  countless  types  and  creeds  and  nationali- 
ties— Turks,  Afghans,  Persians,  Arabs,  Indians,  and  Euro- 
peans; Jews,  Hindus,  Christians,  Parsees,  Shiites,  Sun- 
nites,  and  Mohammedans  of  all  the  seventy-three  sects  into 
which  the  Prophet  of  Mecca  predicted  Islam  would  even- 
tually be  divided.  The  languages  and  dialects  number 
more  than  a  score,  for  which  reason  the  traveler  in  Bagdad 
would  imagine  that  he  hears  fully  as  many  different  tongues 
as  were  spoken  by  the  builders  of  the  Tower  of  Babel.  In- 
deed, not  the  least  of  the  many  difficulties  which  the  British 
forces  encountered  in  their  recent  operations  against  the 
Turkish  army  was,  we  are  told,  **the  same  which  con- 
fronted the  contractors  for  the  old  tower  so  many  thou- 
sands of  years  ago." 

The  appearance  of  Bagdad,  as  we  wandered  through  the 
maze  of  narrow,  filthy,  noisome  streets,  was  quite  differ- 
ent from  what  it  seemed  when  we  first  saw  it  from  our  laz- 
ily moving  kelek  on  the  palm-fringed  Tigris,  or  when  we 
gazed  upon  it  enveloped  in  the  delicate  mist  of  early  morn- 
ing. Then  little  was  visible  except  domes  and  minarets 
covered  with  bright-colored  tiles  and  scintillating  mosaics 
which  appeared  to  float  in  the  opalescent  atmosphere. 

As  in  the  case  of  all  other  eastern  cities,  Bagdad  is  more 
enchanting  at  a  distance  than  when  viewed  from  her  som- 


430  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

ber  unsanitary  and  intricate  thoroughfares.  And  as  we 
threaded  our  way  through  these  dingy  streets  and  bjnvays, 
flanked  on  either  side  by  low,  dun-colored,  windowless  mud 
houses,  we  found  it  difficult  to  see  in  them,  even  in  fancy, 
the  sumptuous  homes  that  adorned  the  city  in  the  time  of 
Caliphs  and  more  difficult  still  to  repeople  them  with  the 
glamouring  figures  of  Thousand  and  One  Nights. 

But  when  one  passes  from  these  narrow  and  gloomy 
streets,  that  will  scarcely  admit  a  camel,  into  the  spacious 
courtyards  with  which  even  the  most  unpretentious  dwell- 
ings are  provided,  one  is  often  surprised  at  the  magic 
transformation  of  the  scene.  Here  one  finds  a  profusion 
of  beautiful  trees  and  shrubs  and  plants  loaded  with  flow- 
ers of  every  size  and  hue.  Among  the  most  conspicuous 
are  the  palm,  the  orange,  and  the  pomegranate  whose  bright 
green  foliage  is  in  striking  contrast  with  the  flaming  blooms 
of  the  hibiscus  in  which  the  Bagdadi  takes  as  much  pleas- 
ure as  do  her  dusky  Hawaiian  sisters  in  far-off  Honolulu, 
with  whom  these  brilliant  flowers  are  universal  favorites. 

A  peculiarity  of  the  habitations  of  the  well-to-do  of  Bag- 
dad is  the  serdah,  an  underground  chamber  which  is  usually 
eight  or  nine  feet  in  height.  It  is  here  that  the  family 
lives  during  the  terrifically  hot  weather  that  prevails  dur- 
ing summer  and  a  part  of  the  spring  and  autumn.  But, 
although  the  temperature  is  here  ten  degrees  lower  than 
in  the  upper  part  of  the  house,  the  intense  heat  of  mid- 
summer, which  often  reaches  120°  Fahrenheit  in  the  shade, 
is  almost  unbearable.  As  so  great  a  part  of  the  people 
spend  much  of  their  time  in  the  serdah,  the  city  seems  to  be 
almost  lifeless  during  a  greater  part  of  the  day.  Towards 
sunset,  however,  it  begins  to  revive.  The  women  then  re- 
pair to  the  terraces  of  their  dwellings  where  they  pass  the 
night  in  talking,  smoking,  drinking  sherbets,  and  trying, 
when  the  mosquitoes  permit,  to  get  a  little  sleep.  As  to 
the  men,  especially  the  Moslem  portion  of  the  population, 
they  endeavor  to  find  some  surcease  of  misery  in  the 
Lethean    fumes    of    their    chibouks    and   hubble-bubbles. 


BAGDAD  431 

Most  of  them  congregate  in  the  countless  coffeehouses 
which,  during  the  everlasting  dog  days  of  Bagdad,  are 
thronged  day  and  night  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
sweltering  and  par-baked  humanity. 

Passing  so  much  time  in  a  state  of  semi-torpor,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  even  the  strongest  constitutions  soon  suc- 
cumb to  the  enervating  climate.  Because  of  the  intolerable 
heat,  Europeans  endeavor  every  few  years  to  find  relief  in 
a  change  of  climate.  But  when  this  is  not  possible,  the 
majority  of  the  foreign  sufferers  are  short-lived.  Thus 
I  was  informed  that  the  average  life  of  the  Carmelite  mis- 
sionaries in  southern  Mesopotamia  is  only  about  nine  years. 
But  their  premature  deaths  do  not  deter  them  from  con- 
tinuing the  work  of  charity  to  which  they  are  so  devoted. 
As  soon  as  one  drops  out  of  the  ranks  his  place  is  immedi- 
ately taken  by  a  zealous  confrere  who  is  only  too  willing  to 
serve  in  the  cause  of  the  Master  where  the  trials  are  most 
severe  and  where  the  dangers,  are  greatest  and  most  im- 
minent. 

What  with  the  grilling  climate,  defective  drainage,  igno- 
rance and  neglect  of  the  first  principles  of  hygiene,  one  is 
not  surprised  to  learn  that  the  population  of  Bagdad  is 
periodically  decimated  by  the  plague.  Cholera  is  frequent. 
It  was  this  dread  visitant  that  carried  off  General  Maude, 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  British  forces  during  the  recent 
campaign  in  Mesopotamia  against  the  Turks. 

We  visited  all  the  places  of  interest  in  the  city  but  those 
in  which  we  found  most  local  color  were  the  bazaars.  As 
we  neared  the  principal  one  of  them  we  found  the  street 
crowded  with  Kurdish  hamals  bearing  incredible  burdens, 
and  quick-stepping  white  donkeys  disputing  the  way  with 
awkwardly  racking  camels  which  snappishly  sputtered  or 
proudly  held  aloft  their  supercilious  noses  while  disdain- 
fully sniffing  the  air  above  the  heads  of  shouting  drivers. 
And  round  about  us  was  a  vociferating  throng  that  were 
roughly  jostling  one  another  in  their  mad  rush  to  force 
themselves  into  the  alluring  bazaars,  which  were  already 


432  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

filled  with  all  kinds  of  curious  idlers  or  prospective  pur- 
chasers. 

Although  the  bazaars  of  Bagdad  are  much  smaller  than 
those  of  Damascus  and  Constantinople  they  are  more  in- 
teresting. This  is  not  because  of  the  attractive  wares,  but 
rather  on  account  of  the  strange  and  motley  crowd.  And 
what  a  variety  of  garbs  and  what  a  medley  of  colors  I  There 
are  every  type  and  shade  of  oriental  face;  every  style  of 
headdress;  every  variety  of  costume  one  can  conceive. 
Fezes,  tarbooshes,  keffiehs,  turbans,  the  brimless  hat  of 
the  Baktiari,  the  long  felt  hats  of  the  Lurs  and  the  Kurds ; 
the  black  astrakan  caps  of  the  Russians  and  the  Persians. 
As  to  costumes,  there  is  everything  imaginable  from  the 
primitive  dhotee  of  the  Hindu  to  the  graceful  full-flowing 
aba  of  the  Arabian  mollah  and  the  elaborately  embroidered 
apparel  of  an  Indian  rajah  or  the  closely  fitting  frock  coat 
of  some  prodigal  nabob  from  Europe  in  quest  of  strange 
curios  or  rare  old  rugs  and  tapestries  from  Khorassan 
and  Candahar.  • 

The  vesture  of  the  women  is  even  more  variegated  and 
costly  and  resplendent  than  that  of  the  men.  Some  are 
garbed  in  rich  silks  of  all  the  tints  of  the  autumn  leaf.  Some 
are  veiled,  others  unveiled,  according  as  they  come  from 
the  Moslem,  Jewish,  or  Christian  quarter  of  the  city — but 
all  are  gathered  around  all  the  booths  in  which  there  is  a 
special  display  of  feminine  finery.  There  is  no  law  in 
Islam  to  prevent  women  from  visiting  the  bazaars  and 
whenever  they  desire  to  escape  the  monotony  of  the  harem 
they  start  out  on  a  shopping  tour  ih  which  they  take  as 
much  delight  as  do  their  sisters  in  the  West.  Frequently 
they  have  no  more  intention  of  making  purchases  than 
have  the  hahituees  of  the  great  department  stores  of  Fifth 
Avenue  or  the  splendid  jewelry  shops  of  La  Rue  de  la  Paix, 

My  attention  was  directed  to  the  large  number  of  Jews 
who  had  shops  in  the  city  and  stalls  in  the  bazaars.  Many 
of  them  were  specially  conspicuous  on  account  of  their 
cheap  misfit  garments  from  English  and  German  manufac- 


BAGDAD  433 

tories,  which  contrasted  sharply  with  the  costly  and  ele- 
gant robes  of  some  of  their  customers.  For  headdress 
most  of  them  wore  black  skull  caps  or  flaming  red  fezes 
made  in  Vienna.  But  they  all  had  the  same  dark,  promi- 
nent eyes,  the  same  hot  and  shining  looks,  like  fanned 
flames,  which  so  characterize  the  people  of  their  races  in 
other  parts  of  Mesopotamia  and  the  Near  East. 

When  I  expressed  surprise  at  the  number  of  the  de- 
scendants of  Abraham  that  we  saw  not  only  in  the  bazaars 
but  in  all  parts  of  the  city,  one  of  my  companions  informed 
me  that  they  constituted  fully  one-fourth  of  the  population. 
The  exact  number  of  the  inhabitants  of  Bagdad  is  not  defi- 
nitely known,  but  it  is  variously  estimated  to  be  from  one 
hundred  and  fifty  to  two  hundred  thousand.  There  are, 
indeed,  few,  if  any,  other  large  cities  in  the  Near  East  in 
which  the  children  of  Abraham  have  so  great  a  representa- 
tion in  proportion  to  that  of  the  adherents  of  other  religious 
beliefs. 

The  majority  of  the  Jews  in  Bagdad  are  descendants  of 
those  who  were  deported  from  Judaea  to  Babylonia  by 
Nebuchadnezzar  six  centuries  before  the  Christian  era. 
Others,  doubtless,  are  descended  from  Hebrew  captives  that 
were  a  century  and  a  quarter  earlier  carried  to  Assyria 
by  Sargon  and  Tiglath-pileser  III.  Still  others  trace  their 
descent  from  those  who  voluntarily  sought  refuge  in  Meso- 
potamia after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Eomans 
and  after  the  Holy  City,  many  centuries  later,  fell  under 
the  sway  of  Islam. 

The  favorable  conditions  under  which  the  Jews  of  the 
Captivity  lived  during  the  reign  of  the  Babylonian  mon- 
archs,  and  even  during  the  time  of  the  Abbasside  Caliphs, 
induced  many  of  their  brethren  to  join  them  in  the  fertile 
plains  of  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates.  So  satisfactory, 
indeed,  were  the  relations  of  the  Jews  with  their  Baby- 
lonian rulers,  that  when,  after  they  had  been  seventy  years 
in  captivity,  Cyrus  the  Great  gave  them  permission  to  re- 
turn to  their  native  land,  but  few  of  them,  comparatively, 


434  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

availed  themselves  of  the  proffered  opportunity.  The  un- 
settled conditions  of  Palestine  and  the  sad  experiences  of 
those  of  their  fellow  countrymen  who  had  returned  to  Jeru- 
salem decided  the  majority  of  the  Jews  to  remain  in  Baby- 
lonia where,  although  nominally  captives,  they  enjoyed 
more  peace,  prosperity,  and  even  more  freedom  than  it  was 
possible  to  find  in  the  ravaged  and  desolate  land  of  their 
fathers. 

Once  fairly  settled  in  Babylonia,  where  they  seem  from 
the  first  to  have  enjoyed  a  great  measure  of  freedom,  the 
mode  of  life  and  fortunes  of  the  Jews  underwent  a  com- 
plete change.  In  their  fatherland  their  chief  pursuits  were 
pastoral  and  agricultural.  In  Mesopotamia  also  they  fol- 
lowed for  a  time  the  avocations  of  their  forefathers. 
Thanks,  however,  to  the  greater  productivity  of  the  soil 
in  the  fertile  Babylonian  plain,  which  far  surpassed  that 
of  the  richest  fields  of  Judaea  and  to  their  native  thrift  and 
industry  and  keen  eye  to  business  opportunities,  which  per- 
mitted no  chance  to  escape  them,  it  was  not  long  before  the 
children  of  the  exiles  were  living  in  ease  and  comfort,  while 
many  of  them  soon  found  themselves  in  a  position  which, 
as  compared  with  that  which  they  occupied  in  Palestine 
afforded  them,  in  Johnsonese  phrase,  **the  potentiality  of 
growing  rich  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice. ' ' 

From  that  time  most  of  the  Jews  of  Mesopotamia  began 
to  devote  themselves  to  commercial  pursuits,  which,  more 
than  anything  else,  influenced  the  subsequent  fortunes  of 
their  countrymen  throughout  the  world. 

But  not  only  did  the  descendants  of  the  Jews  of  the  Cap- 
tivity achieve  distinction  in  the  commercial  world;  they 
also  became  celebrated  for  their  attainments  in  science  and 
letters.  Under  the  Caliph  Ali,  in  the  middle  of  the  seventh 
century  of  our  era  the  Jews  of  Irak — Southern  Babylonia 
— ^were  able  to  organize  what  was  almost  an  independent 
state.  Here  flourished  the  great  Talmudic  schools  of  Sara 
and  Pumbeditha  and  here,  in  the  country  of  their  father 
Abraham,  the  Jews  loved  to  fancy  the  survival  of  a  prince 


BAGDAD  435 

of  the  Captivity  who  had  recovered  the  scepter  of  David.'* 
This  was  a  period  of  notable  prosperity  for  Irak,  a  period 
when  Bagdad  was  at  the  height  of  its  glory;  when  it  was 
not  only  preeminent  in  science,  art,  and  literature  but  wa^ 
the  religious  capital  of  Jewry  as  well  as  Islam.'^ 

In  conclusion,  I  may  here  answer  a  question  which  I  have 
been  often  asked,  namely,  *'What  of  the  future  of  Bagdad?" 
'*Is  there  any  hope  of  its  return  to  its  former  greatness 
and  splendor?'* 

This  is  a  difficult  question  to  answer.  When  one  remem- 
bers that  two  other  great  capitals — Seleucia  and  Ctesiphon 
— once  flourished  only  a  few  leagues  to  the  south  of  the  city 
of  the  Caliphs  and  that  now  but  a  vestige  of  them  remains ; 
when  one  remembers  that  Babylon,  a  short  distance  to  the 
southwest,  was,  for  nearly  two  thousand  years,  the  most 
magnificent  city  of  the  ancient  world,  but  that,  under  the 
demolishing  action  of  man  and  nature,  it  so  completely  dis- 
appeared that  its  very  site  was  long  a  matter  of  contro- 
versy, one  will  hesitate  to  make  any  predictions  about  any- 
thing in  a  land  in  which  the  vicissitudes  of  fortune  have 
been  so  extraordinary  and  in  which  the  conflicts  of  inter- 
national interests  have  been  so  relentless  and  so  destruc- 
tive. And  yet,  when  one  travels  over  the  matchless  alluvial 
plains  on  which  stood  the  famous  capitals  that  once  con- 
trolled the  destinies  of  "Western  Asia,  one  cannot  but  feel 
that  there  is  a  brilliant  future  in  this  celebrated  region  of 
the  two  rivers,  but  only  when  a  stable  and  enterprising  gov- 
ernment shall  have  been  established — a  government  whose 
purpose  will  be  not  to  exploit  the  land  and  the  populace 
for  its  own  selfish  purposes,  but  a  government  that  shall 
be  willing  to  guarantee  to  the  people  the  blessings  of  peace 
and  at  the  same  time  honestly  strive  to  secure  for  them 

82  Cf.  Benjamin  of  Tudela,  op.  oit.,  p.  98  et  aeq.  According  to  the  Babylonian 
Talmud  which  "became  the  main  factor  in  the  history  and  development  of 
Judaism,"  the  Jews  of  Babylon  passed  for  a  purer  race  than  those  of  Palestine. 

83  "Tons  lea  pays,"  it  is  said  in  the  French  translation  of  the  Babylonian 
Talmud,  "sont  comme  de  la  pdte  relativement  4  la  Palestine,  maia  ce  pays  Vest 
relativement  d  la  Babylonie."  Cf.  Oiographie  du  Talmud,  p.  320  (by  A. 
Neubauer,  Paris,  1868). 


436  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

their  position  in  tlie  family  of  nations,  to  which  their  long 
and  wonderful  history  gives  them  so  just  a  title."  Then 
and  then  only  shall  we  again  see  the  broad  desert  of  Meso- 
potamia blossoming  as  of  old,  and  witness  once  more  in  the 
Land  of  the  Two  Rivers  a  metropolis  that  shall  recall  the 
greatness  and  the  splendor  of  Babylon  and  Seleucia  and 
Ctesiphon  and  of  Bagdad  too, — Medinah-al-Salam — as  it 
was  in  the  golden  prime  of  Al  Mamun  and  Harun-al-Rashid 
the  Great. 

3*  The  clever  Ottoman  author,  Halil  Halid,  pertinently  writes  in  reference 
to  this  subject:  "In  the  language  of  diplomacy  the  French  term  'action 
civilisatrice'  may  still  have  an  impressive  sound,  but  ov?ing  to  the  free  use 
made  of  it  by  every  politician  and  journalist,  the  sense  of  the  term  has  been 
much  contaminated  with  vulgarity.  The  dignified  charm  of  the  English  po- 
litical literature  dealing  with  the  affairs  of  the  East  has  also  begun  to  de- 
generate into  something  like  a  commonplace.  The  notion  intended  by  the 
term  is  this,  that  when  one  of  the  mighty  Powers  of  Christendom  finds  it  in- 
cumbent upon  itself  to  take  under  its  patronizing  segis  the  internal  affairs 
of  a  Muslim  nation,  which  is  incapable  of  holding  its  own,  freedom,  justice 
and  the  spread  of  civilization  will  either  immediately  or  gradually  follow  the 
introduction  of  its  good  rule  and  signs  of  the  public  well-being  will  spring  up 
here,  there  and  everywhere. 

"There  is  no  necessity  to  cite  here  any  examples  of  the  astounding  work 
which  the  civilizing  Powers  are  doing  in  Eastern  countries,  as  any  one  who 
studies  the  political  settlement  of  these  countries  can  find  ample  instances 
for  himself.  It  should  only  be  remarked  that  all  the  pains  taken  in  this 
direction  are  at  the  expense  of  the  sovereign  rights  and  national  independence 
of  the  people  which  submit  to  the  civilizing  tutelage."  The  Crescent  versus 
the  Cross,  pp.  184,  185   (London,  1907). 


CHAPTER  XVII 
MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN 

And  the  Lord  God  planted  a  garden  in  Eden  eastward; 
wherein  he  placed  man  whom  he  had  formed. 

And  the  Lord  God  brought  forth  of  the  ground  all  manner 
of  trees,  fair  to  behold,  and  pleasant  to  eat  of :  the  tree  of 
life  also  in  the  midst  of  the  garden  and  the  tree  of  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil. 

And  a  river  went  out  of  Eden  to  water  paradise,  which 
from  thence  is  divided  into  four  heads. 

The  name  of  the  one  is  Phison:  that  is  it  which  com- 
passeth  all  the  land  of  Hevilath,  where  gold  groweth. 

And  the  gold  of  that  land  is  very  good:  there  is  found 
bdellium,  and  the  onyx  stone. 

And  the  name  of  the  second  river  is  Gehon :  the  same  is 
it  that  compasseth  all  the  land  of  Ethiopia. 

And  the  name  of  the  third  river  is  Tigris:  the  same 
passeth  along  by  the  Assyrians.  And  the  fourth  river  is 
Euphrates. 

And  the  Lord  God  took  man  and  put  him  into  the  garden 
of  Eden  to  dress  it  and  to  keep  it. 

Genesis,  ii :  5-15. 

"Effendi,  your  terumhil  is  ready."  Thus  did  a  young 
Arab  inform  me  that  the  automobile  which  was  to  take  us 
to  Babylon  was  at  the  door  of  the  Carmelite  monastery. 

Rarely  have  a  few  words  so  thrilled  me  as  did  these  then 
pronounced  by  the  bronze-visaged  son  of  the  desert.  They 
meant  so  much  to  me — far  more  than  the  simple  words 
would  seem  to  imply.  They  meant  that  we  were  at  last  near 
the  final  objective  of  our  long  and  eventful  journey;  that, 
in  a  few  hours,  we  should  be  contemplating  the  world-famed 
ruins  of  Babylon ;  that  in ,  the  short  journey  from  the 
romantic  capital  of  Harun-al-Rashid  to  the  historic  city  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  we  should  traverse  a  land  which  has  long 

437 


438  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

been  celebrated  in  story  and  legend  as  the  cradle  of  our 
race. 

When  we  attempted  to  cross  the  swaying  pontoon  bridge 
which  separates  Bagdad  proper  from  its  old  suburb  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  Tigris,  we  found  our  passage  blocked  for 
a  while  by  the  heterogeneous  crowd  of  men  and  women 
and  the  long  train  of  burdened  donkeys  and  camels  that 
were  headed  for  the  shops  and  the  bazaars  of  the  old 
capital  of  the  Caliphs.  But  we  welcomed  this  delay  as  it 
gave  us  an  opportunity  to  study  a  scene  which,  during  our 
wanderings  along  the  river  front  of  the  city,  had  always 
possessed  for  us  a  special  fascination. 

Here  were  assembled  the  strange  and  varied  craft  for 
which  the  Tigris  is  so  noted.  Among  them  was  the  steam 
side-wheeler  which  brings  freight  and  passengers  from  the 
port  of  Basra  on  the  Shat-al-Arab.  There  were  also  tugs 
and  barges  and  lighters  of  other  varieties  of  modern  craft 
familiar  to  people  of  the  West.  Scattered  among  these  were 
numerous  mahailas,  those  primitive  and  picturesque  boats 
so  much  used  by  the  Arabs  in  the  navigable  parts  of  the 
Tigris  and  Euphrates.  With  their  pointed  prows,  high 
masts,  and  lateen  sails,  they  are  not  unlike  the  dahabiyehs 
of  the  Nile  or  simplified  forms  of  the  fast-sailing  felucca 
and-  xebec  once  so  much  used  by  the  pirates  of  Barbary. 
Alongside  of  them  were  countless  specimens  of  that  long, 
canoe-shaped  boat  called  by  the  Arabs  the  helium — ^which 
in  the  narrow  canals  in  and  around  Basra  serves  the  same 
purpose  as  the  gondola  in  Venice.  The  helium,  to  judge 
from  certain  bas-reliefs  found  among  the  ruins  of  Nimroud, 
is  but  a  slight  modification  of  the  type  of  boat  which  Senna- 
cherib employed  in  his  fleet  during  his  celebrated  campaign 
against  the  Elamits.  But  a  far  more  singular  craft  than 
any  of  those  mentioned  is  the  kufa.  Its  frame  is  woven 
of  willows  or  the  split  branches  of  the  date  palm  and,  like 
the  Ark  of  Noah,  is  *  *  pitched  within  and  without  with  pitch ' ' 
which  is  procured  from  the  hot,  bitumen  springs  of  Hit,  on 
the  Euphrates.    It  is  circular  in  form  and  looks  like  a  large 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       439 

cauldron  with  its  brim  turned  inwards.  Their  great  number 
at  Bagdad  and  the  way  which  they  are  made  to  rotate 
among  the  other  boats  are  always  sure  to  attract  attention. 
They  are  used  as  ferryboats  in  crossing  the  river  and  for 
carrying  freight  and  passengers  to  and  from  the  city  and 
the  adjoining  country.  Herodotus  tells  us  that,  after  the 
city  itself,  these  curious  craft  surprised  him  more  than 
anything  that  he  saw  in  Babylon.  In  form  and  size  they 
are  similar  to  the  coracle  in  which  St.  Brendan  is  said  to 
have  made  his  famous  voyage  from  Ireland  to  America, 
long  centuries  before  Columbus  "to  Castile  and  Leon  gave 
a  New  World.** 

But  few  keleks  are  seen  among  the  numberless  boats  that 
dot  the  Tigris  at  Bagdad.  The  reason  is  simple.  As  soon 
as  they  arrive  from  Mosul  and  Diarbeker  their  wooden 
frameworks  are  sold  for  fuel,  for  which  they  fetch  a  good 
price,  while  the  deflated  skins  are  returned  to  the  places 
whence  they  came  to  be  again  used  in  the  construction  of 
other  keleks. 

Nowhere  in  the  world  can  one  see  so  great  a  variety  of 
river  crafts  as  at  Bagdad,  or  styles  of  vessels  which  have 
remained  unchanged  for  so  many  thousands  of  years.  For 
here  one  finds  everything  from  the  raftlike  slow-floating 
kelek  to  the  swift,  surface-skimming  glisseur  which,  with  a 
powerful  engine,  is  capable  of  making  a  speed  of  more  than 
forty  miles  an  hour.  The  kelek  and  the  kufa  represent  the 
high-water  mark  of  the  shipwright's  achievements  two 
thousand  years  before  our  era,  while  the  glisseur  is  but 
one  of  the  many  triumphs  of  the  marine  engineers  of  the 
twentieth  century  of  the  era  in  which  we  live.  Forty 
centuries  separate  the  two  creations  and  yet  they  are  both 
seen  here  side  by  side — one  typifying  the  changeless  East 
and  the  other  the  ever-progressive  West. 

After  the  congested  trafl&c  on  the  bridge  had  diminished 
sufficiently  to  allow  us  to  pass,  we  took  the  stage  road  that 
leads  to  Hillah  and  Babylon.  There  was  nothing  to  detain 
us  in  West  Bagdad  for  of  the  old  Round  City  of  Mansur 


440  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

not  a  vestige  is  now  visible.  Many  travelers  make  a  detour 
to  get  a  near  view  of  the  noted  Kazimayn  mosque  but,  as 
the  fanatical  Shiahs  do  not  allow  a  Christian  to  enter  this 
sacred  shrine,  I  was  satisfied  with  the  view  I  had  had  of  it 
through  my  field  glass  from  the  summit  of  the  lofty  old 
minaret  of  Souk-El-Ghazl. 

Neither  did  we  go  to  see  that  other  lion  on  the  western 
bank  of  the  Tigris — the  much  lauded  tomb  of  Zobeide,  who 
occupies  so  conspicuous  a  place  in  Thousand  and  One 
Nights  and  in  many  Arabian  chronicles.  With  the  renowned 
Arabian  queens  Zenobia  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba,  Zobeide 
will  always  live  in  story  and  legend  as  one  of  the  most 
prominent  figures  of  the  East.  According  to  an  Eastern 
tradition,  she  shares  with  the  mythical  Sultana  Schehera- 
zade the  honor  of  having  composed  those  fascinating  tales 
known  as  ''The  Arabian  Nights."  "We  did  not  visit  the 
crumbling  monument  which  is  said  to  contain  her  tomb,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  it  has  been  proved  beyond  doubt 
that  this  was  never  the  last  resting  place  of  Harun-al- 
Rashid's  favorite  wife  and  was  never  considered  to  be  so 
until  nearly  nine  hundred  years  after  her  death. 

A  few  short  hours  after  leaving  the  city  of  the  Caliphs 
we  were  in  the  heart  of  the  broad  alluvial  plain  of  Babylonia. 
But  there  was  little  to  attract  our  attention  except  the 
countless  mounds  that  dotted  the  broad  expanse  of  level 
land  and  covered  all  that  remained  of  once  flourishing  towns 
and  cities.  With  the  exception  of  a  few  palms  here  and 
there  along  some  old  irrigating  canal  this  extensive  region 
was  almost  as  treeless  as  the  desert  sections  of  northern 
Mesopotamia.  Outside  of  an  occasional  reed  hut  or  black 
tent — the  humble  homes  of  Bedouin  Arabs — ^we  saw  but 
few  human  habitations  in  a  land  that  during  thousands  of 
years  was  as  thickly  populated  and  as  carefully  cultivated 
as  Holland  or  the  valley  of  the  Rhine. 

Once  we  met  a  small  caravan  of  pilgrims  coming  from 
far-distant  Mecca  and  Medina.  Although  travel  worn  by 
their  long  journey  through  the  burning  sands  of  Arabia 


MOTOEING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       441 

they  seemed,  nevertheless,  to  be  a  very  joyous  company. 
They  were  happy  in  the  thought  of  having  complied  with 
the  precept  of  the  Koran  which  requires  that  every  one  of 
the  Faithful  shall,  if  at  all  possible,  make  a  pilgrimage,  at 
least  once  in  his  life-time,  to  the  venerated  shrines  which 
enclose  the  Kaaba  and  the  tomb  of  the  Prophet.    Even 

The  camels,  tufted  o'er  with  Yemen's  shells, 
Shaking  in  every  breeze  their  light-toned  hells, 

seemed  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  their  cheerful  and  godly 
riders. 

Among  the  green-turbaned  hadjis  I  observed  two  whose 
means  enabled  them  to  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  genuine 
Arabian  steeds.  After  the  delightful  experience  I  had  had 
with  a  pure-blooded  Arabian  horse  when  traveling  in  the 
East  many  years  ago,  I  have  never  been  able  to  pass  one  of 
these  noble  animals  without  scrutinizing  it  as  closely  as  I 
would  a  masterpiece  of  Raphael  or  Murillo.  I  do  not  know 
whether  or  not  these  two  horses  had  made  the  long  journey 
to  Mecca  and  return — a  distance  of  nearly  fifteen  hundred 
miles — but  if  they. did,  they  failed  to  show  it,  for  they 
seemed  as  lively  and  as  vigorous  as  if  they  had  been  on  the 
road  but  a  few  days.  But  this  is  one  of  the  characteristics 
of  the  true  Arabian  horse — its  remarkable  powers  of 
endurance,  even  when  forced  to  travel  long  distances  without 
food  or  water.^  Judging  from  their  delicate  forms,  their 
well-fashioned  heads,  their  large  beautiful  eyes,  their  agile 
and  supple  movements,  the  two  steeds  in  question  must 
have  been  bred  from  one  or  two  of  the  five  pure-blooded 
races  of  horses  for  which,  from  time  immemorial,  Arabia 
has  been  so  celebrated.^ 

1  "Neejdee  horses  are  especially  esteemed  for  great  speed  and  endurance  of 
fatigue;  indeed  in  this  latter  quality  none  can  come  up  to  them.  To  pass 
twenty-four  hours  on  the  road  without  drink  and  without  flagging  is  cer- 
tainly something;  but  to  keep  up  the  same  abstinence  and  labor  conjoined 
under  the  burning  Arabian  sky  for  forty-eight  hours  at  a  stretch  is,  I  believe, 
peculiar  to  animals  of  the  breed."  Personal  Narrative  of  a  Journey  Through 
Central  and  Eastern  Arabia,  p.  310  (by  W.  G.  Palgrave,  London,  1869). 

2  The  most  prized  horses  in  Arabia  belong,  it  is  said,  to  the  Khamsa, 
namely,  to  one  of  the  Kehilan  breeds,  which,  according  to  tradition,  are 
descended  from  Mohammed's  five  favorite  mares. 


442  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

According  to  an  Arabian  legend,  when  God  wished  to 
create  the  horse  He  called  the  South  Wind  to  Him  and  said, 
"I  wish  to  take  from  thy  bosom  a  new  being.  Condense 
thyself  by  depriving  thyself  of  thy  fluidity."  The  wind 
obeyed.  The  Lord  then  took  a  handful  of  that  element,  now 
become  malleable,  breathed  upon  it  and  the  horse  was 
born.  *  *  You  will  be  for  man,  * '  the  Lord  then  said,  *  *  a  source 
of  happiness  and  riches  and  he  will  render  himself  illus- 
trious by  riding  you." 

It  is  said  that  *  'the  happiest  events  in  the  life  of  a  Bedouin 
are  the  births  of  a  she-camel,  of  a  son,  and  of  a  she-foal. ' ' 
And  so  highly  does  the  Arab  value  his  young  colts,  as  well 
as  his  young  camels,  that  he  cares  for  them  as  children  and 
**the  nearer  on  the  social  ladder  he  stands  to  the  real 
Bedouin"  the  higher  rises  his  love  for  his  horse.  Indeed, 
to  judge  by  his  actions  at  times,  one  would  think  that  he 
prefers  his  horse  to  his  son.  For  when  the  camels  are 
milked  in  the  evening  the  cpjts  receive  their  regular  supply 
of  the  lacteal  fluid  before  t]b,e,  children  of  the  family.  Not 
only  this,  but  the  true  Arab  jputs  the  care  of  his  horse  before 
his  own  ease.  In  the  desert,  there  is  a  saying  that  **work 
which  does  not  belittle  a  man  is  for  his  horse,  for  his  brother 
and  for  his  guest."  Another  saying  among  the  Bedouins 
is  that  "Allah  has  three  great  gifts  for  man — a  good  horse, 
a  good  wife  and  a  good  blade. ' '  Similar  to  this  is  the  adage 
that  "the  greatest  blessings  are  a  wise  wife  and  a  fruitful 
mare." 

How  well  the  Bedouin  is  rewarded  for  his  affectionate 
care  of  his  horse  is  a  common  theme  of  the  stories  and  songs 
of  the  desert.  For  the  prized  animal  which  occasionally 
exhibits  almost  human  intelligence  fully  reciprocates  his 
master's  affection  and  serves  him  in  danger  and  out  of 
danger  with  a  loyalty  that  is  proverbial  and  with  an 
unswerving  devotion  that  never  falters  as  long  as  strength 
and  life  endure. 

But  one  cannot  speak  of  the  Arab's  horse  without  also 
saying  something  of  his  intimate  associate — the  camel.    So 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN      443 

indispensable  is  the  camel  to  the  Bedouin  that,  without  it, 
it  would  be  almost  impossible  for  him  to  continue  his  nomad 
life.  For  the  hair  of  the  animal  supplies  him  with  clothing 
and  tents  while  its  milk  is  his  principal  article  of  food. 
Hence,  the  significant  proverb  *'God  created  the  camel  for 
the  Arab  and  the  Arab  for  the  camel.'*  Hence,  also,  the 
peculiar  custom  of  speaking  of  the  camel  as  a  ''person." 
Thus  an  Arab  when  enumerating  his  flocks  and  herds  will 
speak  of  so  many  *'head"  of  sheep  or  cattle,  but  when  count- 
ing his  camels  will  speak  of  them  as  so  many  ''persons.'* 

According  to  a  Bedouin  legend,  the  camel  and  the  date 
were  fashioned  by  Allah  from  the  same  clay  from  which 
Adam  was  formed.  The  same  legend  declares  that  they 
were  found  with  our  first  parents  in  the  Garden  of  Eden 
and  that  they  will  accompany  man  to  the  world  beyond  the 
tomb.  When  young,  the  camel,  like  the  colt,  is  regarded  as 
a  member  of  the  family.  Like  its  companion,  the  colt,  it  is 
fondled  as  a  child  and  always  treated  with  the  most  unre- 
mitting care.  And  so  important  a  position  does  it  occupy 
in  the  life  of  the  family  and  the  clan  in  Arabia,  that  the 
poets  of  the  desert  have  from  time  immemorial  vied  with 
one  another  in  seeking  suitable  epithets  for  their  inseparable 
servant  and  associate.  The  number  of  these  epithets, 
describing  and  glorifying  the  camel,  is  no  less  than  six 
hundred,  while  the  distinguished  French  traveler  Chardin 
assures  us  that  it  is  fully  a  thousand. 

And  well  may  the  Arab  sing  the  praises  of  the  animal  to 
which  he  owes  so  much,  for  it  is  to  the  patient,  frugal,  and 
laborious  camel  that  he,  in  great  measure,  owes  his  proud, 
uninterrupted  independence  during  the  long  ages  of  his 
country's  history.  For,  "without  the  camel,  he  must  have 
long  since  bowed  his  neck  to  a  foreign  yoke,  sharing  the 
fate  of  those  despised  felahin  who  guide  or  draw  the  plow 
on  the  banks  of  the  Nile  and  the  Orontes. ' '  ^ 

But  while  the  much-praised  camel  is  to  the  Arab  fully 
as  useful  as  the  horse — in  many  respects  far  more  indis- 

8  Cf.  E.  Reclus,  Asia,  VpL  IV,  p.  466  (New  York,  1855). 


444  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

pensable — ^he  has,  contrary  to  general  opinion,  neither  the 
docility  nor  the  intelligence  of  the  horse  and,  notwithstand- 
ing all  the  care  his  master  may  have  lavished  upon  him, 
shows  no  interest  in  him  whatever.  Besides  this,  he  is 
vindictive  to  a  degree,  and  that  sooner  or  later  he  will  seek 
revenge  for  some  real  or  fancied  injury  is  so  well  known 
that  the  camel  driver  is  always  on  his  guard  against  its 
malice  and  fury. 

Palgrave,  the  adventurous  explorer  of  central  and  eastern 
Arabia,  who  had  a  rare  opportunity  of  studying  **the  ship 
of  the  desert ' '  in  his  desert  home,  writes : 

If  docile  means  stupid,  well  and  good ;  in  such  a  case  the 
camel  is  the  very  model  of  docility.  But  if  the  epithet  is 
intended  to  designate  an  animal  that  takes  an  interest 
in  its  rider  so  far  as  a  beast  can,  that  in  some  way  under- 
stands his  intentions  or  shares  them  in  a  subordinate 
fashion,  that  obeys  from  a  sort  of  submissive  or  half  fellow- 
feeling  with  his  master,  like  the  horse  and  elephant,  then 
I  say  that  the  camel  is  by  no  means  docile,  very  much  the 
contrary ;  he  takes  no  heed  of  his  rider ;  pays  no  attention 
whether  he  be  on  his  back  or  not ;  walks  straight  on  when 
once  set  agoing,  merely  because  he  is  too  stupid  to  turn 
aside;  and  then,  should  some  tempting  thorn  or  green 
branch  allure  him  out  of  the  path,  continues  to  walk  on  in 
this  new  direction  simply  because  he  is  too  dull  to  turn 
back  into  the  right  road.  ...  In  a  word,  he  is  from  first 
to  last  an  undomesticated  and  savage  animal,  rendered 
serviceable  by  stupidity  alone,  without  much  skill  on  his 
master's  part  or  any  cooperation  on  his  own  except  that 
of  an  extreme  passiveness.  Neither  attachment  nor  even 
habit  impresses  him;  never  tame,  though  not  wide-awake 
enough  to  be  exactly  wild.* 

Shortly  after  meeting  the  caravan  from  Mecca  and 
Medina,  we  overtook  one  going  in  the  opposite  direction. 
This  was  composed  of  pilgrims  on  their  way  to  the  sacred 
shrines  of  Nejef  and  Kerbela — the  holy  cities  of  the  Shiites. 

4  Op.  cit.,  pp.  25,  26. 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       445 

A  sorrier  and  more  mournful  crowd  could  not  easily  be 
imagined.  It  was  composed  of  Persian  Shiites  who  were 
convoying  their  dead  to  Kerbela  and  Nejef  for  burial. 
Among  the  departed  were  some  but  recently  deceased,  while 
others  had  been  dead  for  years  and  their  moldering 
remains  had  been  exhumed  for  final  interment  in  the  sacred 
ground  in  and  around  Kerbela  and  Nejef.  There  were  no 
sumptuous  funeral  cars  for  transporting  this  gruesome 
freight.  Only  jades  and  donkeys  and  mules,  all  worn  out 
by  their  long  journey  through  the  sandy  desert.  Nor  were 
there  any  costly  caskets  to  enclose  the  remains  of  the  dead. 
Far  from  it.  Some  were  wrapped  in  reeds  and  rugs  while 
others  were  packed  in  bags  and  baskets.  In  this  condition 
they  were  slung  from  the  backs  of  the  jaded  pack  animals 
which  were  conducted  by  friends  or  servants  of  the  deceased. 

In  Nejef  are  preserved  the  ashes  of  Ali,  the  husband  of 
Fatima,  daughter  of  the  Prophet  of  Mecca,  while  in  the 
mosque  of  Kerbela  is  the  last  resting  place  of  his  son, 
Husein.  By  his  followers  Ali  was  considered  the  first 
legitimate  Caliph  and  his  sons  Hasan  and  Husein  have 
ever  since  their  tragic  death  been  venerated  as  martyrs. 
It  was  the  dispute  about  the  first  lawful  Caliph  that  occa- 
sioned the  great  schism  which  divides  the  Moslem  world 
into  two  sects:  the  Shiites,  who  reject  the  first  three 
Caliphs — Abu-Bekr,  Omar,  and  Othman — as  usurpers ;  and 
the  Sunnites,  who  recognize  Ali  as  well  as  the  three  Caliphs 
named,  while  they  regard  the  Shiites  as  **forsakers  of  the 
truth."  The  Shiites  include  the  Persians,  besides  whom 
they  have  a  large  representation  among  the  Mohammedans 
of  India. 

It  is  the  ardent  desire  of  every  devout  Shiite  to  be  buried 
either  in  Nejef  or  Kerbela,  for  the  sacred  soil  of  these 
places,  so  he  firmly  believes,  assures  him  of  paradise.  There 
is  a  cherished  tradition  among  the  Shiites  that  Ali  will  be 
the  first  to  rise  on  the  day  of  the  general  resurrection  and 
that  all  who  are  interred  in  Nejef  will  rise  with  him  to  a 
life  of  immortality  and  happiness. 


446  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

This  accounts  for  the  countless  thousands  that  are  every 
year  interred  in  Nejef  and  Kerbela.  The  cost  of  the  burial 
permits  at  these  two  places  is  said  to  amount  to  nearly  a 
million  dollars  a  year,  while  the  number  of  pilgrims  from 
Persia  alone,  who  annually  visit  the  shrines  of  Ali  and 
Husein  is  estimated  at  no  less  than  sixty  thousand  souls. 
In  a  preceding  chapter  we  have  seen  that  the  pilgrims — 
nearly  all  of  whom  are  Sunnites — that  yearly  visit  Medina 
and  Mecca  number  fully  two  hundred  thousand.  Consider- 
ing, however,  the  relative  populations  of  Shiite  and  Sunnite 
countries,  more  pilgrims  are  found  at  the  shrines  of  Ali 
and  Husein  than  at  those  of  the  Prophet  and  the  Kaaba. 

But,  although  both  the  great  Moslem  sects  recognize 
Mohammed  as  their  prophet  and  have  the  greatest  venera- 
tion for  him,  the  most  profound  hatred  separates  one  from 
the  other.  The  Shiites  regard  the  Sunnites  as  impure  and 
detest  them  because  of  their  association  with  Christians 
and  Jews,  something  which  the  followers  of  Ali  consider 
intolerable. 

Unlike  the  Sunnites,  the  Shiites,  especially  those  in  the 
valleys  of  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates,  lead  a  retired  life 
and  studiously  avoid  relations  with  all  except  their  core- 
ligionists. Those  of  the  well-to-do  class  are,  when  at  home, 
continually  engaged  in  religious  ceremonies  and  confer- 
ences. On  these  occasions  accounts  are  read  of  the  tragic 
deaths  of  Ali  and  his  sons.  So  moved  are  all  present  that 
they  express  their  grief  by  sobs  and  lamentations.  These 
reunions,  which  usually  last  two  hours,  take  place  for  the 
men  in  apartments  specially  reserved  for  them  and  in  the 
harem  for  the  women.  But  the  women  are  much  more 
demonstrative  in  their  sorrow  than  the  men,  for  so  moved 
are  they  by  the  recital  of  the  cruel  deaths  of  Ali  and  his 
sons  that  they  utter  piercing  shrieks,  strike  their  breasts, 
and,  when  carried  away  by  their  delirium,  disfigure  their 
faces  with  their  finger  nails. 

But  what  is  passing  strange  is  that  these  ceremonies  of 
mourning  take  place  on  such  occasions  of  rejoicing  as  a 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       447 

wedding  or  the  birth  of  a  child.  In  a  word,  the  Shiites  are 
bom,  live,  and  die  in  the  midst  of  tears  and  moans  and 
lamentations.  The  wailing  of  the  Jews  in  Jerusalem  at 
the  wall  of  the  temple  of  their  forefathers  occurs  but  once 
a  week,  while  the  dolorous  reunions  of  the  Shiites  are  far 
more  frequent.  During  the  first  ten  days  of  the  month 
of  Moharrem  and  every  day  during  the  pilgrimage  to  Nejef 
and  Kerbela  they  are  obHgatory." 

But  it  is  not  my  purpose  in  this  chapter  to  give  more  than 
a  cursory  glance  at  the  present  condition  of  Babylonia  and 
its  people.  For,  during  my  wanderings  in  this  historic  land, 
my  thoughts  were  rather  occupied  with  its  myths  and 
legends  and,  above  all,  with  that  interesting  and  persistent 
tradition  which,  from  time  immemorial,  has  here  located 
the  Garden  of  Eden — ^what  the  "Vulgate"  calls  the  Para- 
dise of  Pleasure  and  what  is  frequently  known  as  the 
Terrestrial  Paradise. 

Of  the  many  interesting  subjects  treated  of  in  the  book 
of  Genesis,  few  have  received  more  attention  from  scholars 
and  interpreters  than  that  which  relates  to  the  Terrestrial 
Paradise.  Even  in  the  early  days  of  Christianity  men  began 
to  dispute  about  it.  Some,  among  them  Origen*  and  St. 
Ambrose,  not  to  mention  others,  inclined  to  the  opinion 
that  the  Genesiac  account  of  the  cradle  of  our  race  was  to 
be  interpreted  allegorically.  Others,  however,  like  St. 
Jerome  and  St.  Augustine,'  maintained  that  the  Scriptural 
narrative  regarding  the  Garden  of  Eden  was  to  be  inter- 
preted literally.  Even  at  the  present  time  Biblical  students 
exhibit  the  same  difference  of  opinion  respecting  the  words 
of  the  Sacred  Text  which  relate  to  the  Garden  of  Paradise 
as  was  displayed  by  the  writers  and  Fathers  of  the  primi- 
tive Church.  Some  favor  an  allegorical  interpretation  of 
the  much  discussed  narrative  while  others  contend  that  we 

»  See  La  Province  de  Bagdad,  p.  108  (by  Habib  K.  Chicha,  Cairo,  1908). 

«  "Who  is  eo  foolish  as  to  suppose  that  God,  after  the  manner  of  a  husband- 
man, planted  a  paradise,  in  Eden  towards  the  East,  and  placed  in  it  a  tree 
of  life,  visible  and  palpable,  so  that  one  tasting  of  the  fruit  by  the  bodily 
teeth  obtained  life?"    De  Principiit,  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  I. 

T  De  Oenesi  ad  Litteram,  Lib.  VIII,  Cap.  L 


448  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

must  adopt  a  literal  interpretation.  **So  concrete,"  they 
hold  with  St.  Augustine,  "is  the  description  of  the  Terres- 
trial Paradise  that  one  cannot  allegorize  it  without  doing 
violence  to  the  text. ' ' 

The  eminent  Assyriologist,  Frederick  Delitzsch,  in  an 
elaborate  study  of  this  long  vexed  question,  insists  that  **the 
Biblical  record  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  contains  no  indication 
of  being  fabulous  or  extravagant,  or  enveloped  in  semi- 
obscurity.  Neither  need  one  hesitate  as  to  the  sense,  nor  is 
one,  for  lack  of  clearness,  obliged  to  read  between  the  lines. 
For  the  narrator  the  Garden  of  Eden,  with  its  four  rivers, 
the  Phison,  the  Gehon,  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates,  is  a 
manifest  and  well-known  reality.  He  is  in  nowise  obscure 
respecting  the  meaning  of  the  names  of  the  Phison  and 
the  Gehon.  Not  only  does  he  know  exactly  their  significa- 
tion— as  exactly  as  that  of  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates — 
but  he  wishes  to  instruct  his  readers  concerning  the  subject. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  he  gives  explanations  and  eluci- 
dations which  his  readers  can  control." ' 

But,  notwithstanding  the  explicitness  of  the  author  of 
the  second  chapter  of  Genesis,  the  localization  of  the  Garden 
of  Eden  bristles  with  many  and  grave  difficulties.  Ever 
since  the  days  of  Philo  Judasus,  scholars  have  been  seeking  a 
solution  of  the  problem,  and,  although  they  have  written 
countless  books  on  the  subject,  the  actual  site  of  the  Terres- 
trial Paradise  still  remains  a  matter  of  uncertainty. 

How  diverse  have  been  the  views  of  learned  men  respect- 
ing the  site  of  Paradise  is  evinced  by  the  fact  that  they 
have  located  it  almost  everywhere  on  the  earth,  above  the 
earth,  and  under  the  earth.  Some,  following  the  Ptolemaic 
system  of  astronomy,  have  contended  that  the  home  of  the 
first  parents  was  in  the  third  heaven;  others  that  it  was 
in  the  fourth ;  others  still  that  it  was  in  the  heaven  of  the 
moon,  or  in  the  middle  region  of  the  air,  or  in  some  hidden 
place  far  removed  from  the  knowledge  of  mortals.  Others 
again  with  a  great  display  of  erudition  have  attempted  to 

8  Wo  Lag  das  Paradies,  p.  44  (Leipsic,  1881). 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       449 

prove  that  it  was  situated  in  Syria,  or  Palestine,  or  Arabia, 
or  Persia,  or  Armenia,  or  Assyria,  or  India,  or  China,  or 
Tartary.  Still  others,  who  were  a  little  more  specific  in 
their  speculations,  placed  the  Garden  of  Eden  on  the  banks 
of  the  Ganges,  in  the  Canaries,  or  in  Ceylon,  or  on  the 
Mountains  of  the  Moon,  where  the  Nile  was  supposed  to 
have  its  source.  Hebron,  Jerusalem,  Damascus,  and  Baby- 
lon have  each  been  considered  as  being  on  the  identical 
spot  where  our  first  parents  were  created  and  where  they 
fell  from  their  high  estate. 

The  Benedictine,  Ralph  Higden,  who  follows  the  opinion 
of  some  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  tells  us  in  his  Poly- 
chronicon  that  the  Terrestrial  Paradise  is  in  an  inaccessible 
region  in  Eastern  Asia.  Gautier  de  Metz,  in  his  Image  du 
Monde,  is  in  essential  agreement  with  the  learned  Benedic- 
tine as  to  the  location  of  the  Garden  of  Eden.  It  is,  he 
avers,  surrounded  by  flames,  and  access  to  it  through  its 
single  gate  is  precluded  by  an  armed  angel  who  is  always  on 
guard.  Lambertus  Floridus  describes  the  primeval  home 
of  our  race  as  an  island  in  the  Eastern  ocean — Paradisus 
insula  in  oceano  in  oriente.  But,  like  Gautier  de  Metz,  he 
declares  it  to  be  inaccessible  because  it  is  surrounded  by  a 
wall  of  fire. 

Peter  Lombard,  the  famous  Master  of  the  Sentences,  who 
is  followed  by  other  mediaeval  writers,  teaches  that  Paradise 
is  located  on  a  very  high  mountain  in  Eastern  Asia — so 
high  that  the  waters  of  the  Deluge,  which  rose  above  the 
summit  of  Ararat,  submerged  only  its  base."  Another 
author  informs  us  that  **  Paradise  is  neither  in  heaven  nor 
on  earth.  .  .  .  It  is  forty  fathoms  higher  than  Noah's 
flood  was  and  it  hangeth  between  heaven  and  earth 
wonderfully,  as  the  Ruler  of  aU  things  made  it.  .  .  . 
There  is  there  neither  hollow  nor  hill;  nor  is  there  frost 
nor  snow,  hail  or  rain,  but  there  is  fons  vitcs,  that  is,  the 

»Lib.  II,  dist.  17,  c.  5,  "Unde  volunt  in  orientali  parte  esse  paradisum, 
longo  inter jacente  epatio  vel  maris  vel  terra  a  regionibus  quas  incolant 
homines  secretum,  et  in  alto  situm,  usque  ad  lunarem  circuliim  pertingentem, 
unde  nee  aqu»  diluvii  illuc  pervenerunt." 


450  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

well  of  life.  .  .  .  There  is  there  neither  heat  nor  hunger, 
nor  is  there  ever  night,  but  always  day.  The  sun  there 
shines  seven  times  brighter  than  on  this  earth.  Therein 
dwell  innumerable  angels  of  God  with  the  holy  souls  till 
doomsday.  * '  ^^ 

Of  similar  import  is  the  description  of  Paradise  contained 
in  an  Anglo-Saxon  poem — a  translation  of  the  "De  Phoe- 
nice '  ^  of  the  Pseudo-Lactantius — in  which  the  poet  declares : 

I  have  heard  tell 
Thai  there  is  far  hence 
In  eastern  parts 
A  land  most  noble 
Amongst  men  renowned. 
That  tract  of  earth  is  not 
Over  mid  earth 
Fellow  to  many 
Peopled  lands; 
But  it  is  withdrawn 
Through  the  Creator's  might 
From  wicked  doers. 
Beauteous  is  all  the  plain, 
With  delight  blessed, 
With  the  sweetest 
Of  earth's  odors. 

From  the  time  of  Indicopleustes,  who  flourished  in  the 
sixth  century,  to  our  own,  travelers  and  explorers  have 
sought  for  the  Garden  of  Eden,  and  geographers  have  indi- 
cated on  their  maps  the  places  they  imagined  it  should 
occupy.  Some  were  satisfied  with  a  conjectural  location, 
but  others,  basing  their  speculations  on  the  data  given  in 
the  second  chapter  of  Genesis,  were  minded  that  the  prob- 
lem was  so  simple  that  it  could  be  answered  off-hand.  They 
were  quite  like  Hudibras  who 

Knew  the  seat  of  Paradise, 
Could  tell  in  what  degree  it  lies. 
And  as  he  was  disposed  could  prove  it 
Above  the  moon  or  below  it. 

10  Cf.  Curious  Myths  of  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  255  et  seq.  (by  S.  Baring 
Gould,  London,  1892). 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       451 

In  a  letter  purporting  to  have  been  written  to  the  Em- 
peror Manual  Comnenus,  the  mythical  king  Prester  John 
declares  that  Paradise  is  situated  within  three  days'  jour- 
ney of  his  own  empire,  but  whether  this  empire  is  in  Asia 
or  Africa  is  not  made  clear. 

The  river  Indus  which  issues  out  of  Paradise  [he  writes] 
flows  among  the  plains  through  a  certain  province  and  it 
expands,  embracing  the  whole  province  with  its  various 
windings.  There  are  found  emeralds,  sapphires,  topazes, 
chrysolites,  onyx,  beryl,  sardius  and  many  other  precious 
stones.  At  the  base  of  Mount  Olympus,  located  in  the 
dominions  of  Prester  John,  there  is  [the  king  continues]  a 
marvelous  fountain  and  from  hour  to  hour  and  day  to  day 
the  taste  of  this  fountain  varies  and  its  source  is  hardly 
three  days '  journey  from  Paradise  from  which  Adam  was 
expelled.  If  any  man  drinks  thrice  of  this  fountain  he  will 
from  that  day  feel  no  infirmity  and  he  will,  as  long  as  he 
lives,  appear  of  the  age  of  thirty. 

Sir  John  Mandeville,  the  reputed  author  of  a  celebrated 
travel  book,  which,  he  assures  us,  was  "proved  for  true" 
by  the  Pope's  councils,  places  Paradise  ''beyond  the  lands 
and  isles  and  deserts  of  Prester  John's  lordship."  .  .  . 

Of  Paradise  [he  tells  us]  I  cannot  speak  properly,  for  I 
was  not  there.  ...  I  repent  not  going  there,  but  I  was 
not  worthy.  But  [he  continues]  Terrestrial  Paradise,  as 
wise  men  say,  is  the  highest  place  of  the  earth;  and  is  so 
high  that  it  nearly  touches  the  circle  of  the  moon  there  as 
the  moon  makes  her  turn. 

You  shall  understand  [he  writes]  that  no  mortal  may 
approach  to  that  Paradise;  for  by  land  no  man  may  go, 
for  wild  beasts  that  are  in  the  deserts  and  for  the  high 
mountains  and  great,  huge  rocks  that  no  man  may  pass 
by  for  the  dark  places  that  are  there ;  and  by  the  rivers  may 
no  man  go,  for  the  water  runs  so  roughly  and  so  sharply, 
because  it  comes  down  so  outrageously  from  the  high  places 
above,  that  it  runs  in  so  great  waves  that  no  ship  may  row 
or  sail  against  it;  and  the  water  roars  so  and  makes  so 


452  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

huge  a  noise,  and  so  great  a  tempest,  that  no  man  may  hear 
another  in  the  ship,  though  he  cried  with  all  the  might  he 
could.  Many  great  lords  have  essayed  with  great  will  many 
times  to  pass  by  those  rivers  towards  Paradise  with  full 
great  companies,  but  they  might  not  speed  on  their  voyage ; 
and  many  died  for  weariness  of  rowing  against  the  strong 
waves;  and  many  of  them  became  blind  and  many  deaf 
from  the  noise  of  the  water ;  and  some  perished  and  were 
lost  in  the  waves,  so  that  no  mortal  man  may  approach  to 
that  place  without  the  special  grace  of  God." 

Columbus,  as  we  learn  from  his  letters,  thought  he  had 
found  the  site  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  in  the  northern  part 
of  South  America.  True,  he  was  not  aware  that  he  had 
discovered  a  new  continent.  He  was  under  the  impression 
that  he  was  on  the  east  coast  of  Asia,  the  ocean-laved  shores 
of  far-off  Cathay.  He  accepted  as  true  one  of  the  tradi- 
tional beliefs  which  located  Paradise  in  farther  India,  or 
yet  more  to  the  eastward  and  was  fully  persuaded  that  he 
had,  in  the  Orinoco,  discovered  one  of  the  rivers  that 
watered  Eden. 

Writing  to  his  Royal  patrons,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella, 
of  the  region  at  the  headwaters  of  the  Orinoco,  he  says : 

I  have  no  doubt  that,  if  I  could  pass  below  the  equinoctial 
line,  after  reaching  the  highest  point  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
I  should  find  a  much  milder  temperature  and  a  variation  in 
the  stars  and  in  the  water ;  not  that  I  suppose  that  elevated 
point  to  be  navigable,  nor  indeed  that  there  is  any  water 
there;  indeed  I  believe  it  impossible  to  ascend  thither, 
because  I  am  convinced  that  it  is  the  spot  of  the  Earthly 
Paradise  whither  no  one  can  go  but  by  God's  permission, 
i  [Continuing,  he  adds]  There  are  great  indications  of 
this  being  the  Terrestrial  Paradise,  for  its  site  coincides 
with  the  opinions  of  the  holy  and  wise  theologians  whom  I 
have  mentioned;  and  moreover  the  other  evidences  agree 
with  the  supposition,  for  I  have  never  either  read  or  heard 
of  fresh  water  coming  in  so  large  a  quantity  in  close  con- 

II  The  Voyage  and  Travaile  of  Sir  John  Mandeville,  Chap.  XXX. 


MOTOEING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       453 

junction  with  the  water  of  the  sea ;  the  idea  is  also  corrobo- 
rated by  the  blandness  of  the  temperature ;  and,  if  the  water 
of  which  I  speak  does  not  proceed  from  the  Earthly  Para- 
dise, it  appears  to  be  more  marvelous,  for  I  do  not  believe 
that  there  is  any  river  in  the  world  so  large  and  so  deep. 

The  more  I  reason  on  the  subject  [he  concludes]  the  more 
satisfied  I  become  that  the  Terrestrial  Paradise  is  situated 
on  the  spot  I  have  described ;  and  I  ground  my  opinion  upon 
the  arguments  and  authorities  already  quoted.  May  it 
please  the  Lord  to  grant  your  Highnesses  a  long  life  and 
health  and  peace  to  follow  out  so  noble  an  investigation  in 
which  I  think  our  Lord  will  receive  great  service,  Spain 
considerable  increase  of  its  greatness  and  all  Christians 
much  consolation  and  pleasure,  because  by  this  means  the 
name  of  the  Lord  will  be  published  abroad.^^ 

But  Columbus  was  not  the  only  one  to  locate  the  original 
home  of  our  race  in  South  America.  Only  a  few  years  ago 
a  patriotic  Bolivian  scholar,  Emeterio  Villamil,  maintained 
that  the  site  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  was  on  the  eastern  slope 
of  the  mighty  Sorata,  while  the  Argentine  geologist.  Dr. 
Ameghino,  contended  that  the  mother  region  of  mankind 
was  within  the  shadow  of  Monte  Hermoso,  in  southern 
Argentina.  There  could  be  no  doubt  about  it.  For  did  he 
not  here  discover  the  skeleton  of  the  first  man?  And  did 
he  not  testify  to  the  faith  that  was  in  him  by  giving  to  the 
Argentine  Adam  the  imposing  name  of  Tetraprothomo  Ar- 
gentinus? 

According  to  M.  Mayo,  however,  all  those  who  would 
place  humanity 's  first  hearthstone  in  Asia,  or  in  Europe,  or 
in  America  were  entirely  mistaken.  In  an  ingenious  study 
on  '*Les  Secrets  de  Pyramides  de  Memphis  "^^  he  argues 
that  the  desert  of  Sahara  embraces  what  was  once  the  Gar- 
den of  Eden.  True,  it  is  now  a  bleak  and  arid  desert,  but 
he  believes  it  was  once  a  land  of  marvelous  beauty  and 
fertility.     There  was  a  time,  he  avers,  when  it  was  watered 

12  See  Select  Letters  of  Christopher  Columbus,  pp.  141-147  (translated  b7 
R.  H.  Major  and  printed  for  the  Hakluyt  Society,  London,  1870). 

13  La  Nouvelle  Revue,  April  16,  1893. 


454  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

by  large  rivers  and  meandering  streams ;  when  it  was  cov- 
ered with  rich  verdure  and  luxurious  vegetation;  when  it 
was  densely  populated  and  the  happy  home  of  a  peaceful 
and  prosperous  people.  A  new  reading  of  Genesis,  in  the 
light  of  certain  hieroglyphical  inscriptions  of  the  twelfth 
dynasty  regarding  the  pyramid  of  Cheops  will,  he  assures 
us,  solve  the  mystery  that  has  so  long  enshrouded  the  famed 
monument  of  Gizeh  and  reveal  the  reason  why  all  attempts 
hitherto  made  to  localize  the  Paradise  of  Scripture  have 
proved  futile.  The  Nile,  he  will  have  it,  formerly  flowed 
through  the  Sahara  where  it  divided  into  four  branches, 
constituting  the  quadrifurcate  river  of  Genesis.  At  this 
time  the  people  of  Egypt,  who  even  then  were  a  powerful 
and  highly  civilized  nation,  suffered  from  lack  of  water 
and  cast  about  to  increase  their  supply  of  this  all-important 
element.  They  obtained  it  by  deflecting  the  course  of  the 
Nile  and  directing  it  through  their  own  country.  By  mak- 
ing a  large  cut  or  ditch  through  an  elevation  near  Khartoum 
they  appropriated  to  themselves  the  waters  of  the  great 
reservoirs  of  equatorial  Africa  and  shut  off  from  their 
neighbors  in  the  Sahara  the  only  source  of  irrigation  on 
which  their  country  could  depend.  It  was  thus,  accord- 
ing to  this  quixotic  Frenchman,  not  God  but  man  who 
closed  Paradise  and  made  entrance  into  it  impossible  by 
taking  from  it  the  water  that  gave  it  fecundity  and  life. 
** Fudge,"  vociferates  Ignatius  Donnelly.  **Amen," 
ejaculates  Unger.  Paradise  according  to  these  worthies 
was  not  situated  in  any  of  the  existing  continents,  for  its 
seat,  as  can  be  proved,  was  in  the  lost  Atlantis.  Accepting 
Plato  *s  account  of  the  Atlantis,  as  given  in  the  TimsBus,  as 
veritable  history,  the  paradoxical  Donnelly  attempts  to 
show  that  Atlantis  was  not  only  the  Garden  of  Eden  but 
also  the  only  possible  center  of  distribution  for  the  various 
races  which  now  people  the  Old  and  the  New  "World.  And 
more  than  this.  Not  only,  he  asseverates,  "was  it  the  orig- 
inal home  of  mankind  but  it  was  likewise  the  focus  whence 
have  eradiated  all  our  cereals  and  most  useful  plants  and 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       455 

fruits  and  all  our  domestic  animals.'*"  Here,  too,  he 
claims,  many  of  the  most  valuable  inventions  which  ever 
blessed  our  race  had  their  origin.  In  a  word,  if  we  are  to 
believe  this  plausible  author,  Atlantis  was  the  home  of  art, 
science,  and  literature  and  the  people  who  inhabited  it  not 
only  enjoyed  all  the  peace  and  happiness  of  which  the  an- 
cient poets  speak  as  being  the  lot  of  the  privileged  mortals 
of  the  Golden  Age  but  they  were  the  prototypes  of  the 
gods,  demi-gods,  and  heroes  of  a  later  and  less  fortunate 
period. 

"Nonsense,"  exclaim  Dr.  Warren,  Count  Saporta,  and 
the  German  astronomer,  Herr  Kohl.  Basing  their  opinions 
on  certain  forced  interpretations  of  various  ancient  legends 
and  traditions  and  on  the  results  of  scientific  explorations 
of  the  regions  within  the  Arctic  Circle,  these  gentlemen 
reach  the  startling  conclusion  that  the  first  home  of  our 
race  was  in  the  circumpolar  North. 

The  investigations  of  botanists,  they  remind  us,  declare 
the  singular,  but  as  yet  inexplicable  fact,  that  ''all  the 
floral  types  and  forms  revealed  in  the  oldest  fossils  in  the 
earth,  originated  in  the  region  of  the  North  Pole  and  thence 
spread  first  over  the  northern  and  then  over  the  southern 
hemisphere,  proceeding  from  north  to  south."  The  same 
may  also  be  said  of  numerous  and  important  representa- 
tives of  the  world 's  fauna.  "Why  then,  they  inquire,  are  we 
not  justified  in  placing  humanity's  birthplace  where  the 
animals  and  plants  which  serve  man  and  on  which  he  sub- 
sists and  which  have  accompanied  him  on  his  migrations 
over  the  earth's  surface  are  known  to  have  originated! 
**Only  from  the  circumpolar  regions  of  the  North,"  affirms 
Count  Saporta, '  *  could  primitive  humanity  have  radiated  as 
from  a  center  to  spread  into  the  several  continents  at  once 
and  to  give  rise  to  successive  emigrations  toward  the  south. 
This  theory  best  agrees  with  the  presumed  march  of  the 
human  races.  "^^ 

"i*  Atlantis,  The  Antediluvian  World,  p.  455  (New  York,  1884). 
16  Popular  Science  Monthly,  p.  678,  September,  1883. 


456  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

At  the  North  Pole  of  the  earth,  therefore,  *'the  sacred 
quarter  of  the  world,"  **the  navel  of  the  earth,"  *'the 
mesomphalos, "  "the  umbilicus  orhis  terrarum,"  are  we  to 
look  for  the  long  lost  Eden,  for  the  cradle  of  mankind. 
There  where  the  aurora  borealis  is  seen  in  all  its  splendor, 
under  a  canopy  formed  by  palpitating  and  wafting  draper- 
ies, quivering  curtains  and  shining  streamers  of  primatic 
hues  of  varying  intensity  and  matchless  brilliancy  our  first 
parents  spent  the  first  happy  days  of  their  existence  and 
there,  amid  a  frozen  desolation  lie  buried  the  ''hearthstone 
of  Humanity's  earliest  and  loveliest  home,"  ^^ 

But  the  views  of  those  who  have  located  Paradise  in  * '  the 
fairie  North"  have  been  no  more  satisfactory  than  the  con- 
tentions of  those  who  have  placed  it  on  the  elevated  plateau 
of  the  Andes,  or  on  the  top  of  a  cloud-piercing  mountain 
of  farther  India  or  beneath  the  shifting  sands  of  the  Sahara 
or  in  the  fabled  Atlantis  or  in  some  mythical  Hyperborean 
land  which  has  been  ice  bound  for  a  million  years  or  more. 
Far  from  it.  So  fascinating,  however,  is  the  subject  that 
men  of  science  still  continue  the  quest  of  humanity's  orig- 
inal dwelling  place  and  still  elaborate  theories  respecting 
its  location  that  are  quite  as  fantastic  as  were  those  of  the 
speculators  and  paradox  mongers  of  the  past.  Thus,  ac- 
cording to  Hasse,  it  was  in  Prussia  on  the  shores  of  the 
Baltic ;  Herder  imagined  it  to  have  been  in  Cashmere ;  Liv- 
ingstone sought  it  in  equatorial  Africa  and  hoped  to  find  it 
at  the  headwaters  of  the  Nile,  if  he  could  be  fortunate 
enough  to  discover  them.  Daumer  maintained  that  it  was 
in  Australia  whence  man  emigrated  to  America  and  thence, 
by  way  of  Behring's  Straits,  to  Asia  and  Europe. 

The  eminent  anthropologist,  Quaterfages  de  Breau,  is 
disposed  to  consider  the  lofty  plateau  of  Pamir  as  the  orig- 
inal hearthstone  of  mankind.^^  This  is  also  the  view  of  the 
distinguished  Orientalist,  Francois  Lenormant,  whose  in- 
vestigations have  led  him  to  believe  that  the  four  rivers — 

loPorodtse  Found,  p.  433  fby  W.  P.  Warren,  Boston,  1885). 
17  The  Human  Species,  p.  176-177  (New  York,  1890). 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       457 

the  Phison,  the  Gehon,  the  Tigris,  and  the  Euphrates — 
which  watered  Gan-Eden,  or  Paradise,  were  what  are  now 
known  as  the  Indus,  the  Oxus,  the  Tarin,  and  the  Jaxartes." 

Here,  too,  curiously  enough,  on  this  **Roof  of  the 
world";  on  this  ** central  Boss  of  Asia,"  is  the  spot  where 
the  puranas  locate  the  holy  Mount  Meru,  the  primeval 
Aryan  Paradise ;  the  center,  according  to  the  traditions  of 
the  Parsees,  whence  radiated  the  first  Aryan  migrations, 
and  one  of  the  regions  of  the  earth  which  even  Mohamme- 
dan teaching  has  assigned  as  the  cradle-land  of  our  spe- 
cies.^" 

From  the  foregoing  opinions  entertained  by  divers  au- 
thors the  reader  can  infer  how  prominent  a  part  wild  con- 
jecture, unbridled  fancy,  and  love  of  learned  paradox  have 
played  in  the  numerous  investigations  which  at  various 
times  have  been  made  with  a  view  of  determining  the  geo- 
graphical seat  of  Paradise.  And,  be  it  remembered,  allu- 
sion has  been  made  to  only  a  few  of  the  opinions  that  have 
in  times  past  been  promulgated  respecting  humanity's 
pristine  home.  Nearly  a  hundred  different  theories  regard- 
ing the  birthplace  of  our  race  have  been  advocated  at  one 
time  or  another,  practically  all  of  which  are  now  discarded 
as  highly  fanciful  or  supremely  ridiculous. 

Must  we,  then  as  many  have  done,  look  upon  the  Garden 
of  Eden  as  a  religious  or  a  philosophic  myth  ?  Has  modern 
research — especially  research  in  the  domain  of  the  new  sci- 
ence of  Assyriology — done  nothing  toward  clearing  up  the 
mystery  which  has  so  long  enveloped  the  site  of  the  Biblical 
Paradise,  or  are  we  forever  to  renounce  all  hope  of  even 
an  approximate  solution  of  the  great  enigma?  Not  at  all. 
We  can  still  say  with  the  Florentine  Poet,  Leonardo  Dati: 

Asia  e  la  prima  parte  dove  Vunomo, 
Sendo  innocente  stava  in  Paradiso. 


"i^  Histoire  Ancienne  de  V  Orient,  Tom.  I,  p.  96  et  seq.   (Paris,  1881). 

18  See  chapter  on  The  Site  of  the  Garden  of  Eden,  in  Science  and  the  Church 
(by  J.  A.  Zahm,  Chicago,  1896),  from  which  I  have  extensively  drawn  for  the 
present  treatment  of  the  subject. 


458  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

And  leaving  out  of  consideration  the  vagaries  of  certain 
transformists  and  polygenists  and  the  lucubrations  of  cer- 
tain noted  paradoxers  like  those  just  referred  to,  it  may- 
be asserted  of  a  truth  that  the  general  consensus  of  the 
highest  and  most  trustworthy  authorities  is  agreed  in  locat- 
ing the  cradle  of  humanity  somewhere  in  that  part  of  Asia 
which  is  embraced  by  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates. 

There  would,  probably,  never  have  been  much  doubt 
about  this  matter,  at  least  on  the  part  of  Scriptural  schol- 
ars, had  it  not  been  for  the  imperfect  geographical  knowl- 
edge of  early  Christian  writers  and  for  the  errors  that  had 
been  given  currency  by  The  Seventy  in  their  version  of  the 
Old  Testament  from  Hebrew  into  Greek.  They  made  no 
mistake  about  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates,  which  were 
well  known  to  them,  but  when  it  came  to  the  Phison  and 
the  Gehon  they  went  completely  astray  and  gave  to  these 
two  rivers  an  interpretation  which  was  accepted  without 
question  by  even  the  most  learned  Biblical  exegetes  for 
more  than  a  thousand  years.  For,  in  their  identification  of 
the  Phison  with  the  Ganges  and  the  Gehon  with  the  Nile, 
they  so  confused  all  researches  respecting  the  actual  site 
of  the  Terrestrial  Paradise  that  it  was  not  until  long  cen- 
turies afterwards  that  students  of  the  Genesiac  narrative 
bethought  themselves  of  making  a  more  serious  study  of 
the  Sacred  Text. 

Reading  carefully  the  second  chapter  of  Genesis  they 
discovered  that  many  had  been  misled  by  a  misunderstand- 
ing of  the  eighth  verse.  There,  according  to  the  Vulgate, 
it  is  stated  that  "the  Lord  God  planted  a  paradise  of  pleas- 
ure from  the  beginning.'^  But  a  careful  examination  of 
the  Hebrew  word,  mid-quedem,  which  is  here  made  to  sig- 
nify the  beginning,  should,  they  found,  indicate  space  rather 
than  time.  The  real  sense  of  the  words  above  quoted 
should,  therefore,  be:  ''The  Lord  God  planted  a  garden 
eastward  in  Eden."  And  they  furthermore  discovered 
that  the  word  mid-quedem  meant  eastward  from  Palestine 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       459 

and  not,  as  some  had  imagined,  eastward  from  Baby- 
lonia.''' 

The  site  of  Eden,  it  now  seemed  clear,  should  be  sought 
for  eastward  of  Palestine  where  the  writer  of  the  Genesiac 
narrative  lived  and  somewhere  between  the  well-known 
rivers,  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates.  This  greatly  reduced 
the  area  in  which  the  Terrestrial  Paradise  was  presumed 
to  have  been  located.  For,  if  the  Biblical  account  of  Eden 
was  to  be  interpreted  literally,  it  necessarily  followed  that 
it  must  have  been  placed  somewhere  in  that  peninsular 
tract  of  land  which  is  included  between  the  Tigris  and  the 
Euphrates  and  which  extends  from  their  sources — ^very 
near  each  other — in  the  highlands  of  Armenia  to  their  con- 
fluence in  the  lowlands  of  Babylonia  near  the  Persian  Gulf. 

Guided  by  these  indications  of  the  narrative  of  Genesis, 
the  learned  Benedictine,  Dom  Calmet,  fancied  that  the  seat 
of  Paradise  was  in  the  rich  plateau  of  Armenia  where  even 
to-day  are  found  some  of  the  most  fertile  valleys  in  the 
world.  This  opinion,  it  is  avouched  by  the  followers  of  the 
distinguished  Benedictine,  is  corroborated  by  a  popular 
tradition  in  Armenia  which  locates  the  Garden  of  Eden  in 
the  oasis  of  Ordubad,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Aras.'^ 

The  four  rivers,  according  to  Dom  Calmet 's  theory, 
which  watered  Paradise,  are  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates 
— whose  sources  are  only  an  hour's  journey  from  each 
other — and  the  Phasis  and  Araxes  mentioned  by  Pliny  and 
Strabo.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  sources  of  all 
four  of  these  rivers  are  very  near  one  another,  but  it  is 
still  more  interesting  to  observe  that  the  land  which  is 
watered  by  the  Phasis  and  which  is  supposed,  according 
to  Calmet 's  theory,  to  be  the  Hevilath  of  Genesis,  "where 
gold  groweth,"  corresponds  with  the  Colchis  whither  the 
Argonauts  sailed  in  quest  of  the  Golden  Fleece. 

An  objection  to  this  theory  is  that  it  does  not  harmonize 

20  C/,  Dictionaire  de  la  Bible,  Tom.  IV,  Col.  2121  (pub.  by  F.  Vigoroux, 
Paris,  1908). 

21  See  Reise  der  K.  preussichen  Oeaellachaft  nttoh  Persia,  Tom.  I,  p.  146 
(by  H.  Brugsch,  Leipsic,  1862). 


460  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

with  the  words  of  Genesis  which  declare  that  the  river 
which  went  out  of  Paradise  ''is  divided  into  four  heads," 
that  is,  into  four  branches.  The  natural  meaning  of  these 
words  is  that  the  four  rivers  mentioned  in  the  Edenic  nar- 
rative had  one  and  the  same  source.  But  each  river,  as  has 
been  said,  has  its  own  distinct  source.  The  only  answer 
that  the  defenders  of  the  theory  have  been  able  to  give  is 
one  that  is  warranted  by  no  known  fact — namely  that  past 
revolutions  of  the  earth  *s  surface  have  materially  changed 
the  topography  of  the  original  site  of  the  Garden  of  Eden.^* 

There  were  many  other  objections  to  the  theory  which 
located  the  Paradise  of  Delights  at  the  headwaters  of  the 
Tigris  and  the  Euphrates.  Not  the  least  of  these  was  the 
rigorous  climate  of  the  Armenian  uplands.  For  this  rea- 
son, and  for  others  that  need  not  here  be  specified,  scholars 
began  to  consider  more  favorably  the  hypothesis  which 
placed  the  Garden  of  Eden  somewhere  in  southern  Baby- 
lonia. Among  the  first  of  these  was  John  Calvin.  He 
identifies  the  Gehon  and  the  Phison  with  the  Tigris  and 
the  Euphrates,  in  as  much  as  he  gives  the  names  Gehon 
and  Phison  to  the  two  lower  reaches  of  these  rivers,  which 
connect  the  Shat-el-Arab  with  the  Persian  Gulf .^^  But  Cal- 
vin's theory  regarding  the  location  of  Paradise  is  at  vari- 
ance with  the  words  of  the  Sacred  Text  while  his  assumption 
of  the  antiquity  of  the  two  channels  which  connect  the  Shat- 
el-Arab  with  the  Persian  Gulf  is  completely  negatived  by 
the  teachings  of  science  respecting  the  recent  formation  of 
these  watercourses. 

The  first  one  who  ventured  to  state  precisely  in  what 
part  of  Babylonia  Eden  was  located  was  Pierre  Daniel 
Huet,  the  learned  bishop  of  Avranches.  This  he  did  in  his 
celebrated  Tractatus  de  Situ  Paradisi,  a  book  which  had  so 

22  Cf.  Dom  Calmet,  Commentaire  littSral  sur  la  Genese,  p.  61   (Paris,  1715). 

23  Duo  sunt  amnes  qui  in  unum  coeunt  deinde  abeunt  in  diversas  partes. 
Ita  flumen  unum  est  in  confluente;  duo  autem  inferioribus  alveis  sunt  capita, 
et  duo  versus  mare  postquam  rursus  longius  dividi  incipiunt.  See  his  Com- 
mentarius  in  Genesin.  The  map  of  Babylonia,  which  accompanies  the  text 
renders  the  author's  view  quite  clear,  although  it  does  not  specify  the  sitfe  of 
the  Garden  of  Eden. 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       461 

great  a  vogue  that  it  passed  through  many  editions  and 
was  translated  into  several  languages.  So  clear  to  him 
were  the  indications  of  the  Genesiac  narrative  respecting 
the  site  of  Paradise  that  he  declares  '*I  have  often  marveled 
that  interpreters  have  shut  their  eyes  to  them  and  have 
worried  with  many  and  so  various  conjectures  which  were 
so  little  in  keeping  with  the  plain  words  of  the  Sacred 
Text."  As  for  himself  he  had  no  doubt  about  the  site  of 
the  Garden  of  Eden.  He  was  sure  he  could  indicate  the 
exact  spot  where  the  first  pair  Jived  before  the  fall.  It 
was,  he  opined,  in  a  bend  of  the  river  now  known  as  the 
Shat-el-Arab  and  at  a  point  which,  according  to  Ptolemy's 
map,  is  located  in  latitude  32°  39'  and  in  longitude  80°  10'. 
This,  as  the  map  drawn  to  illustrate  his  view  shows,  was 
near  Aracca — the  Erech  of  Scripture. 

Huet's  view  as  to  the  location  of  Paradise  was  essentially 
the  same  as  that  of  Calvin  whose  theory  was  closely  fol- 
lowed not  only  by  the  theologians  of  Louvain  but  also  by 
Joseph  Scaliger — the  father  of  modern  chronology — and  by 
other  scholars  innumerable.  But,  although  the  good  bishop 
thought  he  had  determined  the  exact  spot  where  the  first 
human  pair  first  saw  the  light  of  day  and,  although  very 
many  of  his  contemporaries  seemed  to  share  his  views,  it 
was  not  long  until  other  hypotheses  were  promulgated  re- 
garding the  much  disputed  site  of  humanity's  original 
home.  Not  counting,  however,  the  fanciful  and  ingenious 
speculations  of  certain  authors  already  mentioned,  the  gen- 
eral consensus  of  scholars,  since  the  time  of  Dom  Calmet, 
seems  to  have  favored  southern  Babylonia  as  the  land  in 
which  *'the  Lord  God  planted"  the  ever-mysterious,  the 
ever-elusive  Garden  of  Eden. 

This  is  particularly  true  since  investigators  have  had  the 
powerful  aid  of  the  new  and  all-important  sciences  of  geol- 
ogy and  Assyriology.  They  have  eliminated  many  fantas- 
tic notions  that  so  long  marred  the  works  of  the  most  serious 
men  of  science  and  have  shown  that  certain  assumptions 
formerly  made  by  exegetes  must  now  be  regarded  as  quite 


462  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

impossible.  And  the  general  trend  of  these  two  sciences 
has  been  to  illumine  and  corroborate  the  much  debated 
statements  of  the  second  chapter  of  Genesis  in  the  most 
unexpected  manner. 

Thus,  one  of  the  oldest  accounts  of  Creation,  as  given 
in  a  cuneiform  inscription  discovered  some  decades  ago  by 
the  noted  Orientalist,  T.  F.  Pinches,  ''carries  us  directly  to 
Babylonia.  In  this  the  creation  of  the  earth  is  but  a  prep- 
aration for  that  of  the  Garden  which  stood  eastward  in 
Eden,  in  the  center,  it  would  seem  of  the  world.  The  gar- 
den was  watered  by  a  river  which  after  fulfilling  its  work 
was  parted  into  'four  heads'  and  flowed  in  four  different 
streams.  Of  these  two  were  the  great  rivers  of  the  Baby- 
lonian plain,  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates ;  the  others  bear 
names  which  have  not  yet  been  identified  with  certainty. 

"The  scenery,  however,  is  entirely  Babylonian.  The 
Eden  itself,  in  which  the  garden  was  planted,  was  the  plain 
of  Babylonia.  This  we  know  from  the  evidence  of  the 
cuneiform  texts.  It  was  called  by  its  inhabitants  Edinu,  a 
word  borrowed  by  the  Semites  from  the  Accado — Sumerian 
edin,  'the  (fertile)  plain.'  To  the  East  of  it  lay  the  land 
of  the  'nomads,'  termed  Nod  in  Genesis  and  Manda  in  the 
inscriptions.  The  river  which  watered  the  Garden  was  the 
Persian  Gulf,  known  to  the  Babylonians  as  'the  river,'  or 
more  fully  'the  bitter'  or  'salt  river.'  It  was  regarded  as 
the  source  of  the  four  other  rivers  whose  'heads'  were 
the  spots  where  they  flowed  into  the  source  which  at  once 
received  and  fed  them. ' '  ^* 

Regarding  the  rivers  which  are  mentioned  in  the  Edenic 
narrative,  Mr.  Sayce,  the  distinguished  Orientalist,  seems 
to  have  no  doubt.  Chief  among  them  are  the  Tigris  and 
the  Euphrates  whose  names  date  back  to  early  Accadian 
times.     "Though  it  is  questionable,"  he  writes,  "whether 

2*  See  The  Higher  Criticism  a^id  the  Verdict  of  the  Monuments,  pp.  95,  90 
(by  A.  H.  Sayce,  London,  1894).  Cf.  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Light  of  the 
Historical  Records  and  Legends  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia,  Chaps.  I,  II  (by 
T.  G.  Finches,  London,  1908) ;  The  Chaldean  Account  of  Genesis,  p.  305  (by 
Oeorge  Smith,  London,  1876). 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       463 

the  names  of  the  Pison  and  the  Gihon  have  hitherto  been 
detected  on  the  cuneiform  monuments,  it  is  not  difficult  to 
determine  the  rivers  with  which  they  must  be  identified."  " 
These  rivers,  he  endeavors  to  show,  must  have  been  the 
Kerkhah,  the  Choaspes  of  the  classical  writers,  and  a 
stream  which  is  now  represented  by  the  Pallakopas  Canal. 
In  the  first  of  these  two  rivers  he  sees  the  Gehon  of  Genesis 
which  ''compasseth  the  whole  land  of  Gush,"  while  in  the 
second  he  recognizes  the  Phison  which  **compasseth  the 
whole  land  of  Havilah. ' ' 

As  to  the  location  of  Eden  it  was,  according  to  Accado- 
Sumerian  inscriptions,  near  the  sacred  city  of  Eridu  which, 
some  six  thousand  years  ago,  was  '*the  great  sea-port  of 
Babylonia,"  but  of  which  nothing  now  remains  but  **the 
rubbish  heaps  of  Abu-Shahrein. ' '  *  'When  Eridu  still  stood 
on  the  sea-coast,"  continues  Sayce,  ''not  only  the  Tigris 
but  other  rivers  also  flowed  into  the  Persian  Gulf.  The 
great  salt  'river,'  as  it  was  termed,  received  the  waters  of 
four  in  all  at  no  great  distance  from  the  walls  of  Eridu."  *' 

As  seen  from  the  foregoing  paragraphs,  Sayce  like  Cal- 
vin, Huet,  and  many  other  scholars,  also  places  the  Garden 
of  Eden  in  southern  Babylonia  and  only  about  twenty  miles 
from  the  spot  so  confidently  indicated  by  the  scholarly 
bishop  of  Avranches  as  the  site  of  the  Terrestrial  Paradise. 

No  less  interesting  than  Sayce 's  view,  which  is  based 
entirely  on  the  teachings  of  Assyriology,  is  the  conclusion 
arrived  at  by  the  noted  Canadian  investigator,  J.  W.  Daw- 
son, from  data  supplied  by  the  science  of  geology  of  which 
he  was  a  recognized  master.  With  Sayce  he  agrees  that 
the  Kerkhah  is  the  Gehon  of  Genesis  but  contends  that  the 
river  Karun,  instead  of  the  Pallakopas  Canal,  as  his  English 
confrere  maintains,  is  the  Phison. 

We  thus  find,  that  if  we  place  our  ancient  geographer 
[the  author  of  the  second  chapter  of  Genesis]  where  he 

2»Ibid.,  p.  97. 

2«  Op.  cit.,  pp.  97,  98. 


464  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

places  himself,  and  suppose  he  refers  to  the  Euphrates 
and  the  three  principal  rivers  confluent  with  it  near  its 
entrance  into  the  Persian  Gulf,  we  obtain  a  clear  idea  of 
his  meaning  and  find  that,  whatever  the  sources  of  his 
information  respecting  the  antediluvian  Eden,  he  had  cor- 
rect ideas  of  the  Idinu  of  his  own  time  and  of  its  surround- 
ing inhabitants.  According  to  him,  the  primitive  seat  of 
man  was  in  the  south  of  the  Babylonian  plain,  in  an  irri- 
gated district  of  great  fertility  and  having  in  its  vicinity 
mountain  tracts  abounding  in  such  mineral  products  as 
were  of  use  to  primeval  man.^^ 

Curiously  enough,  it  is  near  the  locality  designated  by 
Huet  and  Sayce  and  Dawson  as  the  site  of  the  Garden  of 
Eden  that  an  age-old  tradition  of  the  Babylonian  Arabs 
has  located  the  Terrestrial  Paradise.  For  it  is  at  Kurna 
at  the  present  confluence  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris, 
a  spot  noted  for  its  beautiful  and  stately  date  palms — trees 
so  characteristic  of  southern  Babylonia  where  its  fruit  has 
always  formed  the  staple  food  of  its  inhabitants — ^that  this 
tradition  places  the  pristine  home  of  Adam  and  Eve.  Aside 
from  any  legends  that  might  have  been  associated  with  it, 
its  lovely  palm  grove  must  have  made  so  strong  an  impres- 
sion on  the  swarthy  sons  of  the  desert  that  they  naturally 
concluded  that  it  could  have  been  naught  else  but  a  beau- 
tiful vestige  of  the  original  Garden  of  Eden  where  the  first 
human  pair  enjoyed  supreme  happiness  during  their  short 
life  of  original  innocence. 

The  great  difficulty  in  localizing  the  site  of  the  Terres- 
trial Paradise  has  hitherto  arisen  from  the  impossibility 
of  identifying  with  any  degree  of  certainty  the  rivers  Gehon 
and  Phison.  Assyriologists,  however,  are  optimistic 
enough  to  believe  that  some  document  will  eventually  be 
discovered  among  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  still  buried 
beneath  the  ruins  of  ancient  Babylonia  that  shall  settle  this 
long  controverted  question  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  most 
critical  investigator. 

27  Modern  Science  and  Bible  Lands,  pp.  197,  198  (New  York,  1889). 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       465 

But,  in  the  absence  of  the  tablet  or  monument  which  is 
to  supply  us  with  the  eagerly  sought  information  respecting 
these  two  puzzling  rivers,  exegetes  and  historians,  geolo- 
gists and  archaeologists,  Assyriologists  and  anthropologists 
still  continue  their  quest  of  some  clue  that  may  enable  them 
to  solve  the  riddle  which  has  hitherto  so  completely  baffled 
every  attempt  at  its  solution. 

Among  the  most  distinguished  of  recent  scholars  who 
have  essayed  to  clear  up  the  mystery  are  the  German 
savants,  E.  Glaser  and  F.  Hommel.  The  former,  as  the 
result  of  a  careful  study  of  the  geographical  indications 
given  in  the  cuneiform  inscriptions,  arrives  at  a  conclusion 
which,  so  far  as  it  respects  two  of  the  rivers  named  in  the 
Biblical  account  of  Eden,  is  toto  coelo  different  from  that  of 
any  of  his  predecessors  in  this  fascinating  field  of  inquiry. 
For  he  insists,  surprising  as  it  may  seem,  that  the  Gehon 
is  the  Wadi  al-Rummah  and  the  Phison  the  Wadi  Dawasir 
which,  in  early  post-glacial  times  were  two  great  rivers 
that,  after  flowing  eastward  through  central  Arabia,  be- 
came confluent  with  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates  at  a  point 
near  the  Persian  Gulf.  This  was,  we  are  told,  when  Arabia, 
now  a  sun-parched  desert,  was  a  land  of  magnificent  forests 
and  luxuriant  vegetation ;  of  extensive  and  fertile  prairies 
watered  by  frequent  rains;  of  a  temperate  and  equable 
climate — an  ideal  home  for  a  people  who  were  yet  ignorant 
of  the  arts  of  civilized  life  and  whose  only  shelter  was 
abodes  of  the  most  primitive  type.  Glaser,  however,  agrees 
with  those  of  his  predecessors  who  locate  the  Garden  of 
Eden  in  southern  Babylonia.^^ 

Professor  Hommel,  of  Munich,  goes  still  farther  for,  not 
content  with  identifying  the  Gehon  and  the  Phison  with  the 
two  wadis  demanded  by  his  learned  compatriot's  novel 
theory,  he  contends  that  the  Hiddikel  of  Genesis — ^usually 
called  the  Tigris — ^was  none  other  than  the  Wady  Sirhau 
which  traverses  northern  Arabia  and  anciently  emptied  itsj 

28  8kizze  der  Geschichte  und  Oeographie  Arahiens  von  den  altesten  Zeiten 
hit  zum  Propheten  Muhammed,  Vol.  II,  p.  317,  et  geq.  (Berlin,  1890). 


466  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

waters  into  the  Euphrates  near  Kufah.^®  According  to  this 
theory,  the  three  Arabic  rivers  mentioned  formerly  dis- 
charged their  waters  into  a  shallow  estuary  at  points  not 
far  distant  from  one  another.  This  estuary  has  long  since 
been  replaced  by  the  alluvial  land  of  southern  Babylonia 
and  through  it  the  lower  bed  of  the  Euphrates  now  passes 
on  its  way  to  the  Persian  Gulf.  Like  Huet,  Sayce,  Dawson, 
and  Glaser,  Hommel  also  teaches  that  the  Garden  of  Eden 
must  be  sought  in  the  Babylonian  lowland  and  somewhere 
near  the  confluence  of  the  three  Arabian  rivers  just  men- 
tioned with  the  lower  Euphrates. 

All  these  eminent  exegetes  and  men  of  science — and 
countless  others  might  be  named — are  at  one  with  Prince 
Caetani — ^justly  esteemed  for  his  contributions  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  Near  East — ^when  he  declares  that  the 
description  of  the  Terrestrial  Paradise,  as  given  in  the 
Sacred  Text,  in  no  wise  ''alludes  to  an  imaginary  place, 
but,  on  the  contrary  delineates  with  great  precision  a  real 
and  determinate  locality  in  western  Asia.  This  it  does 
not  only  by  naming  the  four  rivers  which  arise  in  it  but  also 
by  specifying  the  countries  watered  by  them  and  by  giving 
a  list  of  their  principal  products. 

**It  is  clear  that  the  author  of  the  Genesiac  narrative  had 
in  view  a  place  that  was  well  known  and  that  he  took  pains 
to  describe  it  so  minutely  that  there  could  be  no  doubt 
whatever  regarding  the  country  which  he  wished  to  indi- 
cate.""* 

But  of  all  the  recent  works  which  locate  the  site  of  Eden 
in  Babylonia  none  has  attracted  more  attention  or  produced 
a  profounder  impression  than  Professor  Delitzsch's  mas- 
terly Wo  Lag  das  Paradies.  The  fact  that  its  author  is 
recognized  as  the  most  eminent  of  contemporary  Assyriolo- 
gists  and  as  one  who  has  in  lower  Mesopotamia  made  a  care- 

^^  Aufsiitze  und  Ahhandlungen,  p.  273  et  seq.   (Munich,  1901). 

30  «<E  chiaro  che  il  narratore  nel  detto  brano  della  Genesi  ha  avuto,  dinazi 
agli  occhi  un  luogo  ben  noto,  e  si  e  data  la  pena  di  discriverlo  mimutamente, 
affinche  non  potessero  surgere  dubbi  sul  paese  che  egli  voleva  indicare."  Stiidi 
di  Storia  Orientale,  Vol.  I,  p.  121  (Milan,  1911). 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OP  EDEN       467 

ful  and  special  topographical  study  of  the  region  which  he 
designates  as  Gan-Eden  and  in  which  he  places  the  Terres- 
trial Paradise,  gives  to  his  interpretation  of  the  Genesiac 
record  respecting  the  Garden  of  Eden  an  importance  that 
no  one  can  ignore.  In  his  opinion  the  four  rivers  mentioned 
in  the  second  chapter  of  Genesis  are  the  Euphrates,  the 
Tigris,  and  the  two  watercourses  now  known  as  the  Shatt 
en-Nil,  which  he  maintains  corresponds  with  the  Gehon, 
and  the  Pallakopas  Canal  which  he  identifies  with  the 
Phison.  I  refer  the  reader  to  the  author's  work  for  his 
reasons  for  arriving  at  these  conclusions.  The  interesting 
fact  is  that  he  agrees  with  the  other  eminent  scholars  above- 
mentioned  in  placing  Gan-Eden — the  Hebrew  name  for  the 
Garden  of  Eden — in  Southern  Babylonia,  although  slightly 
farther  northward  than  do  some  of  the  other  noted  workers 
in  the  same  field  of  research.  According  to  the  interesting 
map,  at  the  end  of  the  volume,  with  which  the  learned  pro- 
fessor has  illustrated  his  book,  Gan-Eden  occupied  the  tract 
of  land  between  Bagdad  and  Babylon.  This  is  where  the 
Tigris  and  the  Euphrates  most  nearly  approach  each  other 
before  their  final  confluence  much  farther  towards  the 
south.^^ 

Were  we,  then,  really  traversing  the  Garden  of  Eden  on 
our  way  from  the  city  of  the  Caliphs  to  the  capital  of 
Nebuchadnezzar?  Tradition  and  legend,  history,  geology 
and  Assyriology,  as  interpreted  by  the  most  eminent  schol- 
ars of  our  time  answer  in  the  affirmative.  Needless  to  say, 
I  loved  to  think  so.  Indeed,  during  our  entire  journey 
through  this  mysterious  land  which  has  filled  so  large  a 
page  in  the  annals  of  our  race,  I  thought  of  little  else. 
Fancy  was  active.  I  needed  only  to  close  my  eyes  to  sur- 
rounding realities  to  feel  that  I  was  literally  wandering 

SI  Referring  to  the  discovery  of  the  word  Eden — Edina — in  cuneiform  in- 
scriptions the  distinguished  Assyriologist,  T.  G.  Pinches,  op.  dt.,  p.  72, 
writes:  "That  we  shall  ultimately  find  other  instances  of  Eden  as  a  geo- 
graphical name,  occurring  by  itself  and  not  in  composition  with  another  word, 
as  in  the  expression  Sipar  Edina,  and  even  a  reference  to  gannat  Edinni,  'the 
Garden  of  Eden/  is  to  be  expected." 


468  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

through  the  fragrant  and  mystic  groves  of  Paradise.  I 
was  as  a  music  lover  under  the  spell  of  Beethoven's  Ninth 
Symphony  or  as  one  entranced  by  the  sublime  harmonies  of 
Wagner's  Parsifal.  Oblivious  of  my  actual  environment 
and  indifferent,  for  the  time  being,  to  the  theories  and 
hypotheses  of  men  of  science  respecting  the  site  of  the  Ter- 
restrial Paradise,  I  thought  only  of  the  simple  narrative 
of  Genesis  and  the  pictures,  based  upon  it,  which,  in  my 
early  youth,  my  imagination  was  wont  to  portray  of  the 
home  of  our  first  parents.  I  recalled  Dante's  description 
of  the  beauties  of  the  Paradise  where  he  met  his  beloved 
Beatrice,  from  whom  he  had  been  so  long  separated  and 
where  he  was  made 

Pure  and  disposed  to  mount  unto  the  stars.^^ 

Yes,  youthful  impressions  and  poetic  fancies  embalmed 
in  immortal  verse  meant  more  to  me  than  did  the  latest 
teachings  of  geologists  and  Assyriologists  with  all  their 
display  of  learning  and  cocksureness.  This  was  particu- 
larly true  when  we  first  caught  sight  of  the  palm-fringed 
Euphrates  and  the  sand-mantled  ruins  of  Babylon.  The 
Euphrates  is  the  one  river  which  the  great  majority 
of  serious  students  have  always  held  was,  without  doubt, 
one  of  the  four  rivers  of  Eden.  And  Babylon,  I  hardly 
know  why,  I  have  always  looked  upon  as  being  as  intimately 
associated  with  the  cradle  of  our  race  as  is  the  Euphrates. 
Both  of  them  were  then  to  me  tangible  landmarks  on  the 
site  of  the  Terrestrial  Paradise  and  when  I  read  Wo  Lag 
das  Paradies  I  could  not  but  hope  that  future  researches 
would  prove  that  the  scholarly  Berlin  Professor  had  at  last 
succeeded  in  locating  the  site  of  humanity 's  birthplace  and, 
in  so  doing,  had  definitively  solved  one  of  the  greatest  rid- 
dles of  the  ages. 

And  as  we  came  near  to  Hillah — ^which  is  supposed  to 
have  formed  a  part  of  Babylon  in  the  days  of  its  greatness 

»2  Purgatorio,  XXXIII,  145. 


MOTORING  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  EDEN       469 

— and  caught  our  first  view  of  its  magnificent  groves  of 
date  palms,  I  loved  to  fancy  that  they  were,  as  the  Talmud 
teaches,  the  actual  scions  of  those  which  flourished  in  the 
''Garden  of  God"  and  which  supplied  food  and  shelter  to 
the  father  and  mother  of  mankind. 

But  a  more  charming  sight  was  awaiting  us.  It  was  a 
beautiful  garden  adjoining  the  home  where  a  kindly  and 
well-to-do  Arab  gave  us  hospitality  while  we  visited  Baby- 
lon and  its  vicinity.  In  this  garden  were  stately  date 
palms,  waving  lazily  in  the  soft  and  scented  breeze,  orange 
and  other  trees  laden  with  golden  fruits,  and  the  plantain 
named  the  Musa  Paradisaica^^  and  countless  flowers  of 
most  gorgeous  colors  and  most  grateful  fragrance.  How 
vividly  this  garden  recalled  the  one  by  God  **in  the  East  of 
Eden  planted,"  of  which  Milton  sings: 

In  this  pleasant  soil 
His  far  more  pleasant  Garden  God  ordained; 
Out  of  the  fertile  ground  he  caused  to  grow 
All  trees  of  noblest  kind  for  sight,  smell,  taste. 

And  how  a  favored  nook,  distinguished  by  a  riot  of  flow- 
ers, caused  this  fair  garden  to  remind  us  still  more  vividly 
of  the  blissful  bower  where  our  first  parents  found  their 
happiest  and  most  blissful  home!  Watered  by  **many  a 
rill"  of  the  Edenic  river  which  flowed  gently  by  it, 

It  was  a  place 
Chosen  by  the  sovereign  planter,  when  he  framed 
All  things  to  man's  delightful  use;  the  roof 
Of  thickest  covert  was  inwoven  shade. 
Laurel  and  myrtle,  and  what  higher  grew 
Of  firm  and  fragrant  leaf;  on  either  side 
Acanthus  and  each  odorous,  bushy  shrut. 
Fenced  up  the  verdant  wall,  each  beauteous  flower, 
Iris  all  hues,  roses  and  jessamin 
Bear'd  high  their  flourished  heads  between  and  wrought 

38  So  called  because  of  an  Eastern  tradition  that  it  was  the  plantain  and 
not  the  apple  which  was  the  forbidden  fruit  in  Paradise.  It  is  also  known  as 
Adam's  fig. 


470  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Mosaic;  under  foot  the  violet, 

Crocus  and  hyacinth  with  rich  inlay 

Broider'd  the  ground,  more  color 'd  than  with  stone 

Of  costliest  emblem^* 

Yes,  as  I  contemplated  the  stately  trees  and  ravishing 
shrubs  and  blooms  of  this  lovely  garden  on  the  sweetly 
murmuring  Euphrates,  I  wished  to  believe  that  the  tradi- 
tion which  located  Paradise  at  or  near  this  spot  was  well 
founded  and  that  I  was  actually  gazing  on  some  of  the 
floral  and  arboreal  descendants  of  those  which  here  shel- 
tered 

Adam,  the  goodliest  man  of  men  since  born 
His  sons,  the  fairest  of  her  daughters  Eve. 

I  wished  also  to  believe  that  we  here  saw  a  remnant  of 
that  spot  which  was  a  prototype  of  the  Garden  of  the  Hes- 
perides,  the  Elysian  Fields,  the  Isles  of  the  Blessed  and 
what  was  a  type  and  figure  of  the  Celestial  Paradise  and 
of  the  home  of  Our  Father  in  Heaven. 

i*  Paradise  Lost,  Bk.  IV. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

BABYLON 

A  labyrinth  of  ruins,  Babylon 
Spreads  o'er  the  blasted  plain; 
The  wandering  Arab  never  sets  his  tent 
Within  her  walls;  the  shepherd  eyes  afar 
Her  evil  towers,  and  devious  drives  his  flock. 
Alone  unchanged,  a  free  and  bridgeless  tide, 
Euphrates  rolls  along. 
Eternal  nature's  work, 

SOUTHEY. 

Hillah  was  founded  by  the  Arabs  in  the  eleventh  century 
of  our  era  and  is  said  by  some  to  occupy  the  southern  part 
of  the  site  of  ancient  Babylon.  Aside  from  its  interesting 
legends  and  traditions — ^many  of  them  connected  with  the 
Tower  of  Babel  and  the  famed  capital  of  Nebuchadnezzar — 
its  chief  attraction  for  us  was  the  number  and  beauty 
of  its  date  palms.  Some  of  them  were,  doubtless,  de- 
scendants of  those  noble  trees  which  once  graced  the  gar- 
dens and  orchards  of  Babylon  in  the  meridian  of  her  splen- 
dor and  which  supplied  her  people  with  an  important  part 
of  their  nutriment.  And,  if  Delitzsch's  theory  regarding 
the  site  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  be  true,  it  is  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  some  of  the  stately  palms  that  now  adorn  the 
gardens  of  Hillah  are  scions  of  trees  that  once  raised  their 
graceful  fronds  high  above  the  humbler  plants  and  shrubs 
of  the  Terrestrial  Paradise. 

Nowhere  in  the  world,  not  even  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile 
or  in  the  fertile  oases  of  Algeria,  will  one  find  such  mag- 
nificent groves  of  date  palms  as  one  sees  along  the  lower 
course  of  the  Euphrates.  On  the  west  bank  of  the  Shat-el- 
Arab,  in  the  humid  district  of  Pasra,  there  are  more  than 
sixty  varieties  of  date  palms  while  the  number  of  trees  is 
estimated  to  run  into  hundreds  of  millions.    It  is,  indeed, 

471 


472  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

from  this  region  that  are  exported  most  of  the  dates  of 
commerce. 

But  these  nourishing  and  delicately  flavored  fruits  are 
not  a  modern  staple  of  commerce.  Way  back  in  early 
Babylonian  times  "dates  of  Akkad,"  as  they  are  called  in 
cuneiform  invoices  of  the  period,  were  exported  in  ex- 
change for  gold,  sheep,  and  oxen.  With  .corn  and  flocks 
and  herds  they  were  among  the  principal  sources  of  the 
country's  wealth.  The  early  Babylonian  kings  specially 
encouraged  the  development  of  date  plantations  and  it  is 
related  of  a  certain  governor  that  he  considered  the  planting 
of  palms  as  among  the  most  notable  achievements  of  his 
administration. 

And  there  was  reason  for  attaching  so  much  importance 
to  the  cultivation  of  the  palm,  because  it  is  not  only  *'the 
prince  of  the  vegetable  world,"  as  Humboldt  declared,  but 
also  the  most  useful  of  all  known  trees.  For  it  not  only 
supplies  the  oriental  with  one  of  his  chief  articles  of  diet 
but  also  furnishes  him  with  bread  and  wine,  meal  and  vine- 
gar, sugar  and  fuel,  matting  and  cordage,  cages  and  baskets, 
chairs,  benches,  beds,  and  other  articles  of  household  furni- 
ture and  material  for  the  construction  of  the  house  in  which 
he  lives.  So  manifold,  indeed,  are  the  uses  of  the  date 
palm  that  Strabo  informs  us  that  a  Persian  poem  enumer- 
ates no  fewer  than  three  hundred  and  sixty  valuable  prop- 
erties of  the  palm. 

We  have  seen  how  dependent  the  oriental  is  on  the  horse 
and  the  camel,  especially  the  latter.  But  the  date  palm  is 
no  less  essential  to  his  well-being  than  the  camel.  What 
an  incomparable  blessing  it  is  in  his  eyes  is  evinced  by  an 
eastern  saying :  '  *  The  palm  is  the  camel  and  the  camel  the 
palm  of  the  desert."  And  so  highly  does  he  revere  it  as 
a  gift  of  God  that  he  would  regard  the  wanton  injury  of 
the  palm  tree  as  nothing  less  than  a  mortal  sin. 

** Honor  the  palm,"  enjoins  Mohammed,  **for  it  is  your 
maternal  aunt ;  on  the  stony  soil  of  the  desert  it  offers  you 


BABYLON  473 

a  fruitful  source  of  sustenance. "  And  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
this  noble  tree  has  followed  Islam  in  all  its  conquests  and 
is  now  to  be  found  in  every  clime  which  is  favorable  to  its 
growth  in  which  the  followers  of  the  Prophet  have  made 
their  homes.  But  the  high  estimation  in  which  this  useful 
tree  is  universally  held  in  the  East  is  shown  by  an  Arabian 
legend  which  declares  that  it  was  from  the  slime  that  sur- 
rounded a  date  palm  that  God  formed  the  first  man. 

It  is  not,  then,  surprising  that  a  tree  that  plays  so  impor- 
tant a  role  in  the  life  of  the  oriental  should  never  be  long 
absent  from  his  thoughts,  especially  when  away  from  the 
land  of  his  fathers.  For,  as  the  Swiss  when  abroad  longs 
for  his  native  mountains,  so  does  the  Arab  pine  for  the 
stately  palms  whose  feathery  and  umbrageous  crowns  are 
to  him  synonyms  of  home  and  sweet  repose. 

Abd-er-Rahman  I,  the  founder  of  the  Ommiad  Caliphate 
of  Cordova,  was  unable  to  endure  in  Spain  the  absence  of 
the  beautiful  tree  which  had  been  the  delight  of  his  youth. 
He,  accordingly,  had  a  young  palm  brought  from  Syria 
and  planted  in  the  garden  of  his  villa  at  Rusafah.  It  was 
to  this  tree,  the  lovely  reminder  of  his  native  land,  that 
the  homesick  Caliph  addressed  these  pathetic  verses : 

Oh,  Palm,  like  me  a  stranger  here, 

An  exile  in  the  alien  west, 

Driven  from  home  and  dispossessed — 

Bui,  ahl  thou'rt  mute,  nor  canst  thou  shed  a  tear, 

Happy  to  have  no  sentient  soul! 
Heart-ache  like  mine  thou  canst  not  know; 
Could' st  thou  hut  feel,  thy  tears  would  flow 
In  yearning  love  and  grief,  without  control. 

Aye,  homesick  tears  for  eastern  groves 
That  shade  Euphrates;  but  the  tree 
Forgets;  and  I,  compelled  to  flee 
By  hate,  almost  forget  my  former  loves. 

When  one  reads  these  impassioned  verses,  one  recalls 


474  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

the  touching  lines  of  the  poet  Juvenal  who,  in  his  exile  in 
Dyene,  wrote: 

Mollissima  corda 
Humano  generi  dare  se  Natura  faieiur 
QtUB  lacrymas  dedit;  hcec  nosiri  pars  optima  sensus?- 

The  words  of  the  exiled  Roman  seem  almost  a  commentary 
on  those  of  the  homesick  Arab. 

As  we  were  leaving  Hillah  for  the  ruins  of  Babylon,  our 
attention  was  arrested  by  a  group  of  happy,  laughter-lov- 
ing children.  Having  always  been  specially  interested  in 
the  children  of  the  Near  East,  particularly  in  those  of  Ana- 
tolia and  Mesopotamia,  we  stopped  to  learn  the  cause  of 
their  mirth.  We  found  them  intently  engaged  in  various 
games  which  seemed  to  afford  them  the  keenest  delight. 
But  what  was  our  surprise  to  find  that  the  favorite  games 
of  these  sunburnt  children  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the 
ruins  of  Babylon  were  just  the  same  as  the  games  that  are 
so  popular  among  the  boys  and  girls  of  America.  And 
stranger  still,  many  of  them  were  quite  the  same  as  I  had 
frequently  seen  played  by  Indian  children  on  the  plateau 
of  the  Andes  and  in  the  wilds  of  Brazil.  The  boys  played 
ball  and  marbles  and  leap-frog,  while  the  girls  were  equally 
preoccupied  with  tag,  cat's  cradle,  and  hopscotch. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  if  there  was  any  Baby- 
lonian blood  in  these  Hillah  children — they  seemed  to  be 
pure  Arabs — and  if  the  games  which  afforded  them  such 
exquisite  pleasure  were  in  vogue  among  the  young  folk 
of  Babylon  in  the  days  of  Paltasar  and  Hammurabi.  I 
commend  these  subjects  to  those  ardent  folklorists  who 
love  to  trace  the  nursery  tales  which  so  delight  the  child 
of  to-day  back  to  times  primeval.^ 

1  Nature  herself  confesses  to  have  given  the  tenderest  hearts  to  the  human 
race,  as  she  gave  them  tears;  this  is  the  best  part  of  our  faculties.  Satire  XV, 
w.  131-133. 

2  According  to  Dr.  Fries,  an  eminent  German  scholar,  all  games  of  ball  are 
traceable  back  to  an  old  light  myth  which  was  presumably  Babylonian  in 
origin:  "Allea  Ballspiel,"  he  writes,  ja  bia  herab  zum  Lawn-Tenis  auf  den- 
aelhen  Oedanken-den  Liohtkampf-zuruckgeht."  Studien  zur  Odyaaee,  Vol.  I, 
p.  324  (Leipsic,  1910). 


BABYLON  475 

Our  first  objective,  after  leaving  Hillah,  was  the  mound 
of  Babil  which  lies  in  the  northern  part  of  the  ruins  of 
Babylon.  Most  of  the  land  between  Hillah  and  the  ruins 
of  the  ancient  world  capital  is  desolate  in  the  extreme. 
Not  a  single  human  habitation  is  visible.  '  And  yet  we  were 
traversing  what  was  during  thousands  of  years  the  richest 
and  most  carefully  cultivated  tract  of  land  in  the  world 
and  the  one,  too,  that  had  the  densest  population.  Now  it 
is  untilled  and  as  abandoned  as  the  Arabian  desert  but 
a  few  miles  to  the  westward.  The  only  evidence  that  we 
were  actually  on  the  site  of  a  once  great  city  were  the  frag- 
ments of  pottery  and  inscribed  bricks  and  the  heaps  of  rub> 
bish  which  cumbered  the  ground  and  the  innumerable 
mounds,  high  and  low,  which  covered  a  region  many  square 
miles  in  area. 

We  saw  nothing  to  remind  us  of  the  majestic  ruins  of 
PsBstum  or  Girgenti;  no  magnificent  temples,  no  stately 
columns,  or  impressive  pediments  or  friezes  or  entablatures. 
In  the  mounds  which  have  not  yet  been  changed  by  the 
pick  and  spade  of  the  explorer  we  could  note  only  occa- 
sional traces  of  brick  walls  but  not  the  slightest  vestige  of 
stone  or  marble.  No  remains  of  temples  or  palaces  or 
buildings  of  any  kind.  All  the  marvelous  structures  de- 
scribed by  Ctesias  and  Herodotus  had  long  since  disap- 
peared beneath  the  drifting  sands  of  the  desert. 

As  one  contemplates  these  mounds,  beneath  which  lay 
the  ruined  palaces  and  temples  and  strongholds  of  the 
proud  Kings  of  Chaldea,  they  have,  in  the  words  of  the 
illustrious  German  explorer,  Dr.  Robert  Koldewey,  *Hhe 
appearance  of  a  mountainous  country  in  miniature; 
heights,  summits,  ravines  and  tablelands  are  all  here."' 
The  landscape  is,  indeed,  such  as  one  might  fancy  to  exist 
on  the  planetoid  Ceres  or  Vesta. 

We  asked  an  Arab  who  accompanied  us  how  the  pots- 
herds and  fragments  of  vitrified  bricks  which  littered  the 
ground  were  brought  here  and  he  promptly  replied — "By 

^The  Excavations  at  Babylon,  p.  15  (London,  1914). 


476  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

the  Deluge."  **A  foolish  answer,"  one  will  say,  but  it  is 
the  same  answer  that  was  given  by  learned  men  only  a  few 
generations  ago  to  account  for  the  occurrence  of  fossils 
on  the  summit  of  the  Alps.  And  it  is  the  same  explanation 
that  was  given  by  the  distinguished  geologist,  Buckland, 
of  the  remains  of  early  man,  which  were  found  in  many 
of  the  caverns  of  Europe.  They  were  reliquce  DiluviancB 
— relics  of  the  Noachian  Deluge — and  the  majority  of  the 
scientific  men  of  his  day  were  disposed  to  accept  his  con- 
clusion as  correct.  It  is,  then,  not  so  long  ago  that  savants 
gave  answers  to  questions  that  were  quite  as  naive  as  that 
of  the  untutored  Arab  of  to-day. 

But  the  Arabs  who  live  in  the  neighborhood  of  Babylon 
tell  more  fantastic  stories.  They  assure  one  that  the  ruins 
are  haunted  by  evil  spirits  and  by  malignant  jinn  and  that 
it  is  dangerous  to  wander  among  the  ruins  after  nightfall. 

They  also  declare  that  there  is  at  the  foot  of  one  of  the 
mounds  here  a  rocky  pit,  although  quite  invisible  to  mor- 
tals, in  which  the  wicked  angels  Harut  and  Marut  were 
condemned  by  the  Almighty  to  be  suspended,  in  punishment 
for  their  sins,  until  the  day  of  judgment.* 

But  more  remarkable  is  their  belief  in  the  existence  here- 
abouts of  satyrs — creatures  which  are  usually  supposed  to 
be  creations  of  the  mythologies  of  Greece  and  Rome.  The 
natives  are  said  to  hunt  them  with  dogs  and  to  eat  their 
lower  half,  although  they  decline  to  partake  of  the  upper 
part  on  account  of  its  resemblance  to  the  human  species. 

As  one  contemplates  the  utter  ruin  and  desolation  which 
are  here  so  overpowering  and  listens  to  the  strange  stories 
of  the  Arabs,  one  recalls  the  words  of  Isaiah — I  quote  from 
the  King  James  version: 

And  Babylon,  the  glory  oT  the  kingdoms,  the  beauty  of 
the  Chaldees*  excellency,  shall  be  as  when  God  overthrew 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah. 

*  "But  the  devils  believed  not,  they  taught  men  sorcery  and  that  which  was 
sent  down  to  the  two  angels  at  Babel,  Harut  and  Marut."  The  Koran,  Sura  II, 
96. 


BABYLON  477 

It  shall  never  "be  inhabited,  neither  shall  it  be  dwelt  in 
from  generation  to  generation;  neither  shall  the  Arabian 
pitch  tent  there;  neither  shall  the  shepherds  make  their 
fold  there. 

But  wild  beasts  of  the  desert  shall  lie  there;  and  their 
houses  shall  be  full  of  doleful  creatures;  and  owls  shall 
dwell  there,  and  satyrs  °  shall  dance  there. 

Babil  is  one  of  the  loftiest  eminences  in  southern  Baby- 
lonia and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  we  visited  it  before  any 
of  the  other  parts  of  the  ruined  Chaldean  capital.  From 
its  summit,  which  towers  seventy-one  feet  above  the  sur- 
rounding plain,  one  has  a  magnificent  view  not  only  of  the 
ruins  as  a  whole  but  also  of  many  notable  features  in  their 
immediate  vicinity.  To  the  west  and  southwest  are  the 
palm-fringed  Euphrates  and  a  number  of  Arabian  villages 
and  gardens  along  its  banks.  Several  miles  southward  is 
Hillah  with  its  gleaming  minaret,  while  some  six  miles 
towards  the  southwest  of  it  is  the  famous  tower  of  Bor- 
sippa,  called  by  the  natives  Birs  Nimrud,  and  long  supposed 
by  many  European  travelers  to  be  identical  with  the  tower 
of  Babel  **the  top  whereof  was  to  reach  to  heaven."  * 

The  prospect  that  greets  the  vision  of  the  spectator  from 
Babil  is  always  interesting,  but  to  the  student  of  sacred  and 
profane  history  the  word  interesting  but  feebly  expresses 
one's  emotions.  This  is  particularly  true  when,  at  the 
hour  of  sunset,  the  long  amethystine  shadows  cast  on  the 
dun-colored  plain,  bring  out  into  bold  relief  the  rich  golden 
lines  of  the  spell-weaving  ruins  of  that  great  city  which, 
in  her  glory,  ruled  over  the  kings  of  the  eastern  world. 
Then  the  prospect  is  absolutely  thrilling.  Then  one  loves 
to  be  in  media  solitudine — such  a  solitude  as  Babylon  is 
to-day — to  watch  the  magnificent  sunset — a  burni shed-gold 
splendor  shading  up  starward  into  delicate  rubies  and  emer- 

e  Chap.  XIII,  w.  19-21.  In  lieu  of  the  word  "satyrs"  the  Vulgate  has 
piloai — ^the  hairy  ones — ^wbich  is  more  in  keeping  with  the  original  Hebrew 
text. 

a  Genesis  xi:  4, 


478  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

aids — to  be  alone  with  one 's  thoughts  while  musing  on  the 
vanished  glories  of  what  was  once  earth's  proudest  and 
most  powerful  capital,  where  for  centuries 

The  gorgeous  East  with  richest  hand 

Show 'red  on  her  Kings  harharic  pearl  and  gold— 

but  of  which  all  we  can  now  say  is  contained  in  the  words 
of  a  Greek  comic  poet,  quoted  by  Strabo, — *Hhe  great  city 
is  a  great  desert."  ^ 

Babil — from  the  old  Semitic  name  Bab-ili — ^which  signi- 
fies *'The  Gate  of  the  Gods,"  was  the  ancient  name  of  the 
city  of  Babylon.  As  locally  used  it  now  designates  the  most 
northerly  mound  of  the  great  city.  It  is,  doubtless,  because 
of  its  name  that  many  travelers  have  mistaken  it  for  the 
Tower  of  Babel  spoken  of  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Genesis. 

Thus  John  Eldred,  an  English  merchant-traveler,  who, 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  made  three  journeys  from  Aleppo 
to  Bagdad — ^which  he  calls  New  Babylon — speaks  of  seeing 
not  only  ''at  his  goode  leisure  many  olde  ruines  of  the 
mightie  citie  of  Babylon"  but  also  of  having  "sundry 
times"  visited  "the  olde  tower  of  Babell."  *  From  his  de- 
scription, however,  one  would  infer  that  the  ruin  which  he 
took  for  the  tower  of  Babel,  was  not  the  Babil  of  which  we 
have  been  speaking  but  rather  the  imposing  ruin  of  Aker- 
kuf  which  is  a  few  miles  to  the  northwest  of  Bagdad,  and 
which  is  locally  called  Nimrod's  Tower.^ 

The  first  European  to  give  an  elaborate  description  of 
Babil  was  Pietro  della  Valle. 

Its  situation  and  form  [he  writes]  correspond  with  that 
pyramid  which  Strabo  calls  the  Tower  of  Belus.  .  .  .  The 
height  of  this  mountain  of  ruins  is  not  in  every  part  equal, 

^  Ep7]nla  fieya\r)  iariv  ij  fieYoKi)  ir6\ii,  Bk.  XVI,  I,  5. 

8  The  Principal  Navigations,  Voyages,  Traffiques  and  Discoveries  of  the 
English  Nation,  Vol.  X,  Part  I,  p.  63  (collected  by  Kichard  Hakluyt,  Edin- 
burgh, 1889). 

8  "The  inhabitants  of  these  parts  are  as  fond  of  attributing  every  vestige 
of  antiquity  to  Nimrod  as  those  of  Egypt  are  to  Pharaoh."  Eich,  Memoir  on 
the  Ruins  of  Babylon   (London,  1818). 


BABYLON  479 

but  exceeds  the  highest  palace  of  Naples.  It  is  a  misshapen 
mass,  where  there  is  no  appearance  of  regularity.  In  some 
places  it  rises  in  sharp  points,  craggy  and  inaccessible ;  in 
others  it  is  smoother  and  of  easier  ascent.  There  are  also 
traces  of  torrents,  caused  by  violent  rains,  from  the  summit 
to  the  base.^** 

The  picture  of  this  mound,  which  he  had  made  by  an  artist 
who  accompanied  him,  gives  one  a  very  good  idea  of  what 
has  been  considered  by  many  to  be  the  Tower  of  Babel  but 
which,  after  the  noble  Roman's  visit  to  it,  was  long  known 
as  Delia  Valle's  Euin." 

But  the  excavations  of  the  **  Deutsche  Orient-Gesell- 
schaft"  under  the  direction  of  Dr.  Koldewey  have  com- 
pletely exploded  all  the  theories  that  have  hitherto  obtained 
regarding  the  mound  of  Babil.  Far  from  being  the  Tower 
of  Babel,  or  Nimroud  or  Belus,  as  has  been  asserted  by  many 
writers  and  travelers,  it  is  now  demonstrated  to  be  the 
ruin  of  one  of  the  numerous  palaces  of  Nebuchadnezzar. 
And  it  is  highly  probable  that  it  is  the  structure  to  which 
this  monarch  refers  in  one  of  his  inscriptions,  in  which  he 
declares : 

On  the  brick  wall  towards  the  north  my  heart  inspired 
me  to  build  a  palace  for  the  protection  of  Babylon.  ...  I 
raised  its  summit  .  .  .  with  bricks  and  bitumen.  I  made 
it  high  as  a  mountain.  Mighty  cedar  trunks  I  laid  on  it  for 
roof.  Double  doors  of  cedar  wood  over-laid  with  copper, 
threshholds  and  hinges  made  of  bronze  did  I  set  up  in  its 
doorways.  That  building  I  named  **May  Nebuchadnezzar 
live,  may  he  grow  old  as  the  restorer  of  Esagila.  * ' " 

There  were,  however,  other  ruins  that  have  at  various 

10  Op.  cit.,  Tom.  I,  p.  382  et  seq. 

11  That  Delia  Valle  had  no  doubt  that  the  mound  of  Babil  was  really  the 
ruin  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  is  quite  evident  from  the  positive  statement  which 
he  makes  to  this  effect:  "che  sia  quella  Babel  antica  fe  la  torre  di  Nembrotto, 
non  c'b  dubbio,  secondo  me,  perche  oltre  che  il  sito  lo  dimostra,  da'  paesani 
ancora  oggidi  h  conisciuta  per  tale,  ed  in  Arabico  6  chiamata  volgarmente 
Babel.     Op.  cit.,  p.  384. 

12  Koldewey,  op.  cit.,  p.  11,  et  seq. 


480.  FEOM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

times  been  identified  with  the  Tower  of  Babel.  Among 
these,  as  has  been  stated,  was  that  of  Borsippa,  commonly 
called  Birs-Nimrud,  which  lies  some  six  miles  southwest 
of  Hillah.  Benjamin  of  Tudela,  who  visited  these  parts  in 
the  twelfth  century,  speaks  of  it  as  **the  tower  built  by  the 
dispersed  generation"  and  declares  that  it  was  struck  by 
a  heavenly  fire  which  "split  it  to  the  very  foundation "  ^^ — 
a  description  that  is  quite  applicable  to  its  present  ap- 
pearance. 

The  distinguished  explorers  Carsten  Niebuhr,  Claudius 
Rich,  and  Robert  Ker  Porter  were  also  of  the  opinion  that 
in  Birs-Nimrud  "we  see  the  very  tower  of  Babel,  the  stu- 
pendous artificial  mountain  erected  by  Nimrod  in  the  plain 
of  Shinar  and  on  which  in  after  ages  Nebuchadnezzar  raised 
the  temple  of  Belus.*'" 

That  the  tower  of  Babel  and  that  of  Belus  [writes  Por- 
ter, in  the  work  just  quoted  from]  were  one  and  the  same, 
I  presume  there  hardly  exists  a  doubt.  And  that  the  first 
stupendous  work  was  suddenly  arrested  before  completion 
we  learn  not  only  from  the  Holy  Scriptures  but  from  sev- 
eral other  ancient  authors  in  direct  terms  .  .  .  and  almost 
every  testimony  agrees  in  stating  that  the  primeval  tower 
was  not  only  stopped  in  its  progress  but  partially  over- 
turned by  the  Divine  wrath,  attended  by  thunder  and  light- 
ning and  a  mighty  wind,  and  that  the  rebellious  men  who 
were  its  builders  fled  in  horror  and  confusion  of  face  before 
the  preternatural  storm.  ...  In  this  ruined  and  abandoned 
state  most  likely  the  tower  remained  till  Babylon  was  re- 
founded  by  Semiramis;  who,  in  harmony  with  her  char- 
acter, would  feel  a  proud  triumph  in  repeopling  the  city 
with  a  colony  from  the  posterity  of  those  who  had  fled  from 
it  in  dismay  and,  covering  the  shattered  summit  of  the  great 
pile  with  some  new  erection,  would  there  place  her  observa- 
tory and  altar  to  Bel.^' 

18  Op.  cit.,  p.  101. 

14  Travels  in  Georgia,  Persia,  Armenia,  Ancient  Babylonia,  Vol.  II,  p.  365 
(by  Robert  Ker  Porter,  London,  1822). 

i»Op.  cit.,  p.  317.  The  Jews  of  Babylonia  call  the  tower  of  Birs-Nimrud 
"Nebuchadnezzar's  priaon,"  for  what  reason  is  not  clear. 


BABYLON  481 

But  the  tradition  which  identifies  the  tower  of  Birs-Nim- 
rud  with  that  of  Babel,  which  is  often  spoken  of  as  '*the 
oldest  building  in  the  world, ' '  rests  on  no  better  foundation 
than  does  that  which  would  make  Babil  the  tower  whose 
progress  was  arrested  by  * '  the  confusion  of  tongues. ' '  The 
researches  of  Assyriologists,  which  have  thrown  such  a 
flood  of  light  on  many  Scriptural  subjects,  have  so  far  been 
unable  to  identify  the  Tower  of  Babel,  or  to  indicate  where 
the  famous  structure  was  located.  Neither  the  renown  of 
the  tower  of  Babil  nor  that  of  Borsippa  proves  that  either 
of  them  was  the  famous  tower  begun  by  the  ambitious  de- 
scendants of  Noah  in  the  plain  of  Shinar,  for  the  populace, 
especially  in  the  East,  *4s  fickle-minded  in  this  as  in  other 
matters  and  holy  fanes  have  the  periods  when  they  are  in 
the  fashion,  just  like  everything  else. ' ' " 

Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  as  much  ignorance  long  pre- 
vailed among  the  learned  of  Europe  respecting  the  site 
of  the  city  of  Babylon  as  about  that  of  the  tower  which  was 
generally  supposed  to  be  located  either  within  its  walls 
or  in  its  immediate  neighborhood.  Writing  about  the 
famed  capital  of  Nebuchadnezzar  at  the  beginning  of  the 
last  century,  a  learned  English  scholar  declared,  ''Well 
indeed  may  the  glory  of  this  renowned  place  be  said  to  have 
departed  when  even  its  site  cannot  with  precision  be  ascer- 
tained and  when  the  antiquary  and  the  traveler  are  alike 
bewildered  amid  the  perplexity  of  their  researches."^' 
The  same  author  expresses  the  same  opinion  in  different 
words  when  he  writes  of  Babylon,  called  Babel  by  the 
Arabs,  that  **its  vast  remains  lay  for  ages  in  the  depths 
of  time  as  much  forgotten  by  the  learned  of  Europe  as  if  it 
had  been  a  city  of  the  antediluvians. ' '  ^*  Even  the  Turkish 
geographer,  Djihannuma,  was  so  in  the  dark  about  the  loca- 
ls The  Old  Testament  in  the  Light  of  Historical  Records  and  Legends  of 
Assyria  and  Babylonia,  p.  138  (by  T.  G.  Prinches,  London,  1908). 

If  Observations  Connected  with  the  Astronomy  and  Ancient  History,  Sacred 
and  Profane,  on  the  Ruins  of  Babylon,  p.  2   (by  T.  Maurice,  London,  1816). 
18  Ibid.,  VpL  II,  p.  336. 


482  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

tion  of  the  ruins  of  Babylon  that  he  placed  them  at  Teluja, 
nearly  eighty  miles  northwest  of  their  actual  site. 

How  great  was  the  ignorance  of  Europeans  during  the 
Middle  Ages  regarding  the  capital  of  the  ancient  world  may 
be  gathered  from  a  statement  of  Sir  John  Mandeville,  who 
tells  his  readers  that  ''Babylone  is  in  the  grete  desertes  of 
Arabye,  upon  the  waye  as  men  gon  toward  the  kyndome 
of  Caldee.  But  it  is  fulle  longe  sithe  ony  man  durste  neyhe 
to  the  toure,  for  it  is  alle  deserte  and  full  of  dragons  and 
grete  serpentes  and  fulle  deverse  veneymouse  bestes  alle 
abouten.  * ' 

Even  in  the  second  part  of  the  last  century  the  distin- 
guished Orientalist,  Oppert,  head  of  the  French  expedition 
to  Mesopotamia  in  the  years  1851  to  1854,"  was  entirely  in 
error  as  to  the  site  of  Babylon.  Influenced,  no  doubt,  by  the 
accounts  of  Herodotus,  Diodorus  Siculus,  and  other  class- 
ical writers  regarding  the  vast  extent  of  Babylon,  he  made 
it  to  embrace  both  Babil  and  Birs-Nimrud,  which  are  full 
fifteen  miles  apart  from  each  other,  and  to  include  an  area 
that  the  researches  of  the  **  Deutsche  Orient-Gesellschaft" 
have  demonstrated  to  be  preposterously  large.^° 

But,  in  order  fully  to  realize  how  greatly  the  size  of  Baby- 
lon was  exaggerated  by  the  ancient  writers  and  to  under- 
stand how  this  capital  of  thousands  of  years  was  able, 
throughout  the  ages,  to  cast  so  great  a  spell  upon  the 
peoples  of  the  earth,  one  must  briefly  consider  some  of  their 
statements  respecting  its  vastness  and  magnificence.  Only 
in  this  way  is  it  possible  to  appreciate  the  glamour  that  has 
so  long  attached  to  it  and  to  discover  the  reasons  for  the 
countless  legends  and  romances  to  which  it  has  given  rise 
since  the  days  of  Nebuchadnezzar  and  Semiramis. 

Of  the  ancient  writers  who  have  given  us  the  most  minute 
descriptions  of  Babylon,  Herodotus  and  Diodorus  Siculus 

19  C/.  Expedition  de   Mesopotamie,  Vol.  I,  Lib.  I  (Paris,  1863). 

20  See  also  Die  Tempel  von  Babylon  and  Borsippa,  p.  69  (by  Dr.  Koldewey, 
Leipsic,  1911),  that  speaks  of  Oppert's  verkehrter  Stadtplan  von  Babylon  and 
who  declares  that  Borsippa,  as  an  independent  city,  bore  the  same  relation  to 
Babylon  as  does  Charlottenburg  to  Berlin. 


BABYLON  483 

are  the  most  deserving  of  notice.  As  Herodotus  spent  some 
time  in  the  city  and  was  an  eye-witness  of  what  he  describes 
he  is,  notwithstanding  the  charges  of  credulity  and  ex- 
aggeration which  have  frequently  been  made  against  him 
in  certain  of  his  statements,  more  trustworthy  than  are 
those  authors  who  wrote  only  from  hearsay. 

What  most  impressed  the  writers  of  antiquity  who  have 
given  us  the  most  graphic  descriptions  of  the  Babylonian 
capital  was  its  stupendous  walls  and  the  vast  area  which 
the  city  embraced.  According  to  Herodotus,  who  is  fol- 
lowed by  Pliny,  who  evidently  accepted  the  measurements 
of  the  Greek  historian,  the  wall  which  girdled  this  wonder- 
ful metropolis  was  seventy-five  feet  in  thickness  and  three 
hundred  feet  in  height. 

On  the  top,  along  the  edges  of  this  wall  were  constructed 
buildings  of  a  single  chamber  facing  one  another,  leaving 
between  them  room  for  a  four-horse  chariot  to  drive  round. 
In  the  circuit  of  the  wall  are  a  hundred  gates,  all  of  brass, 
with  brazen  lintels  and  side-posts.'^^ 

Such  a  prodigious  wall  seems  impossible,  but  when  we 
remember  the  Great  "Wall  of  China,  which  has  nearly  thirty 
times  the  length  of  that  which  Herodotus  says  surrounded 
Babylon,  we  cannot  insist  that  the  historian's  account  is 
inherently  improbable.  But  when  we  know  that  the  Baby- 
lonian wall  was  composed  almost  exclusively  of  sun-dried 
bricks  we  feel  compelled  to  doubt  the  writer's  measure- 
ments for  the  simple  reason  that  it  was  quite  impossible 
for  the  material  used  to  support  a  structure  of  so  great  a 
height.  It  is  true  that  Nebuchadnezzar,  in  a  notable  inscrip- 
tion, describes  his  wall  as  ** mountains  high,"  but  this  is  a 
bit  of  hyperbole  in  which  the  self -glorifying  monarch  was 
wont  frequently  to  indulge.  His  statement  is  quite  as  much 
of  an  exaggeration  as  that  of  Diodorus  Siculus,"  who 

21  The  History  of  Herodotus,  Bk.  I,  178,  179. 

22  Library,  Lib.  II,  Chap.  VII. 


484  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

declares  that  Semiramis,  to  whom  he  attributes  this  colos- 
sal work,  employed  two  million  men  in  building  the  wall  of 
Babylon  and  that  she  built  it  at  the  rate  of  a  furlong  a  day 
and  had  it  completed  in  the  space  of  a  single  year. 

The  circumference  of  the  immense  wall  of  Babylon, 
according  to  Herodotus,  measured  no  less  than  four  hun- 
dred and  eighty  statia — somewhat  more  than  fifty-three 
miles.  Ctesias,  however,  makes  the  circuit  of  the  city  but  a 
trifle  more  than  forty  miles.  In  either  case  the  area  enclosed 
by  the  wall  was  enormous  and  far  greater  than  that  included 
within  the  extended  walls  of  Paris  or  within  those  of  Nan- 
king, which  is  the  largest  city  site  in  China. 

The  city  of  Babylon  [writes  Herodotus]  is  an  exact 
square,  but  certain  recent  investigators  maintain  that  it 
was  in  the  form  of  a  rectangle  twelve  miles  wide  and  fifteen 
miles  long.  But  whatever  the  form  of  the  city,  the  esti- 
mates given  of  its  area  by  ancient  authors  have  appeared  to 
many  modern  scholars  so  staggering  that  they  have  con- 
tended that  it  was  an  inclosed  district  rather  than  a  regular 
city,  the  streets  which  are  said  to  have  led  from  gate  to 
gate  across  the  area  being  no  more  than  roads  through  cul- 
tivated land  ovQr  which  buildings  were  distributed  in 
groups  and  patches.^^ 

Quintus  Curtius  asserts  positively  ''that  the  enclosure 
contained  sufficient  pasture  and  arable  land  to  support  the 
whole  population  during  a  long  siege. ' '  ^* 

If  such  was  the  case  we  should  be  forced  to  conclude  that 
the  population  of  the  city  was  out  of  all  proportion  to  its 
size.  The  English  geographer,  Rennell,^°  is  disposed  to 
allow  to  Babylon  during  its  most  flourishing  period  a  popu- 
lation of  a  million  and  a  quarter,  but  this  is  but  a  surmise, 
and  all  estimates  of  the  number  of  inhabitants  in  the  great 
city  are,  at  best,  the  merest  conjectures. 

23  Rich,  op.  cit.,  p.  43. 

24  Z)e  Reius  Gestis  Alexandri  Magni,  Lib.  V,  Cap.  I. 

25  The  Geographical  System  of  Herodotus  Examined  and  Explained,  p.  347. 


BABYLON  485 

For  nearly  twenty-five  centuries  the  accounts  of  Ctesias, 
Strabo,  Herodotus,  and  the  writers  who  accompanied  Alex- 
ander the  Great  to  the  East  were  our  sole  authorities  re- 
specting the  size  and  the  magnificence  of  the  great  capital 
on  the  Euphrates.  Since,  however,  the  *' Deutsche  Orient- 
Gesellschaf t "  have  begun  to  publish  the  results  of  their 
carefully  conducted  excavations  we  find  that  we  must 
greatly  modify  many  of  our  views  concerning  the  city  about 
which  there  has  been  so  much  legend  and  romance,  and 
envisage  it  in  the  light  of  the  cold,  scientific  facts  which 
have  been  submitted  to  us,  as  the  results  of  long  research, 
by  Dr.  Koldewey  and  his  scholarly  associates.  "While  many 
of  the  descriptions  of  Herodotus  and  other  early  writers 
are  found  to  be  accurate,  it  is  now  clear  that  many  of  their 
measurements  require  very  considerable  revision.  Thus, 
in  lieu  of  the  fifty-three  miles  which  Herodotus  has  given  as 
the  circuit  of  the  city  and  the  forty  miles  at  which  Ctesias 
has  estimated  it.  Dr.  Koldewey  finds  that  these  figures  must 
be  reduced  to  eleven  miles.  The  learned  investigator 
noting  that  the  circumference  given  by  Ctesias  approxi- 
mates closely  to  four  times  the  correct  measurement  is  lead 
to  suspect  that  the  Greek  writer  "mistook  the  figures  repre- 
senting the  whole  circumference  for  the  measure  of  one  side 
of  the  square. ' '  ^* 

The  excavations  of  the  ''Deutsche  Orient-Gesellschaft" 
seem,  therefore,  to  prove  conclusively  that  Babylon,  far 
from  covering  an  area  so  large  that  both  Paris  and  London 
could  find  place  within  it,  side  by  side,  was  in  reality,  as 
Delitzsch  declares,  no  larger  than  Munich  or  Dresden.^^ 

But  in  spite  of  the  great  reduction  that  Koldewey  found 
himself  compelled  to  make  in  the  measurements  of  the 
classical  writers  he  does  not  hesitate  to  declared  ''that,  in 
any  case,  the  city,  even  in  circumference,  was  the  greatest 

26  Op.  cit.,  p.  2. 

27 /m  Lande  dea  Einatigen  Paradieaes,  p.  30  (Stuttgart,  1903).  According 
to  Oppert  the  great  wall  of  Babylon  embraces  an  area  fifteen  times  as  great  as 
that  of  Paris  in  1850  and  as  extended  as  that  of  the  entire  department  of 
the  Seine.    Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  234. 


486  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

of  any  in  the  ancient  East,  Nineveh,  which  in  other  respects 
riviilled  Babylon,  not  excepted."  He  also  pertinently  ob- 
serves that  *'it  must  always  be  remembered  that  an  ancient 
city  was  primarily  a  fortress  of  which  the  inhabited  part 
was  surrounded  and  protected  by  the  encircling  girdle  of 
the  walls.  Our  modern  cities  are  of  an  entirely  different 
character;  they  are  inhabited  spaces  open  on  all  sides.  A 
reasonable  comparison  can,  therefore,  only  be  made  between 
Babylon  and  other  walled  cities  and,  when  compared  with 
them,  Babylon  takes  the  first  place,  as  regards  the  extent 
of  its  enclosed  and  inhabited  area,  not  only  for  ancient  but 
also  for  modern  times."  ^* 

After  spending  some  time  on  and  round  about  the  mound 
of  Babil  we  proceeded  to  explore  the  ruins  in  the  southern 
part  of  the  city.  On  our  way  thither  we  strolled  along  the 
east  bank  of  the  Euphrates  which,  in  places,  is  fringed  with 
stately  palms  whose  feathery  crowns  are  always  a  delight  to 
the  eye.  Indeed,  the  palm  is  so  indispensable  a  feature  of 
an  eastern  landscape  that  no  picture  of  a  town  or  a  river 
seems  complete  without  groves  and  clumps  of  this  most 
picturesque  of  oriental  trees.  I  was  glad  to  find  so  many 
of  them  bordering  the  Euphrates  and  the  western  ruins  of 
Babylon,  as  I  had  always  imagined  that  they  must  here, 
more  than  anywhere  else,  be  an  essential  part  of  the  envi- 
ronment. But,  although  I  was  delighted  to  find  so  many  of 
these  noble  trees,  it  was  not  for  them  that  I  was  then 
specially  looking.  I  was  seeking  rather  a  specimen  of  the 
weeping  willow — the  graceful  Salix  Bahylonica — which,  in 
my  mind,  has  always  been  associated  with  what  is  the  most 
pathetic  threnody  ever  written  in  any  language.  I  refer 
to  the  plaintive  elegy  of  the  Children  of  Israel  during  their 
captivity  in  Babylon.  Seating  myself  under  an  umbrageous 
palm  near  a  cluster  of  delicate  weeping  willows,  I  said  to 
myself :  *  *  This  is  the  one  place  in  the  world  where  one  can 
best  appreciate  the  overmastering  sadness  of  the  home- 
sick exiles  when  their  captors  asked  them  to  sing  the  songs 

28  Op.  cit,,  p.  6, 


BABYLON  487 

of  their  native  land."  And,  taking  my  breviary  from  my 
pocket,  I  read  again  and  again  what  then  seemed  to  me  the 
most  affecting  lines  ever  composed.  Put  yourself,  in  fancy, 
gentle  reader,  on  the  bank  of  the  Euphrates  in  sight  of  the 
ruined  palace  of  Nebuchadnezzar  and  read  aloud  the  lamen- 
tation of  the  disconsolate  Hebrews,  as  given  in  Psalm  137 : 

Upon  the  rivers  of  Babylon  there  we  sat  and  wept :  when 
we  remembered  Sion : 

On  the  willows  in  the  midst  thereof  we  hung  up  our 
instruments.  For  there  they  that  led  us  into  captivity 
required  of  us  the  words  of  songs. 

And  they  that  carried  us  away  said:  Sing  ye  to  us  a 
!     hymn  of  the  songs  of  Sion. 

How  shall  we  sing  the  song  of  the  Lord  in  a  strange 
land? 

If  I  forget  thee,  0  Jerusalem,  let  my  right  hand  be  for- 
gotten. 

Let  my  tongue  cleave  to  my  jaws  if  I  do  not  remember 
thee: 

If  I  make  not  Jerusalem  the  beginning  of  my  joy. 

Is  it  possible  to  put  in  words  a  more  soul-subduing 
**Home  Sweet  Home"  than  this  affecting  Super  flumina 
Bdbylonis  of  the  heart-broken  captives  of  Israel?  But  it 
is  only  when  it  is  sung  in  its  beautifully  rhythmic  Hebrew 
that  one  can  fully  appreciate  its  depth  of  pathos  and 
exceeding  beauty  of  expression. 

Our  walk  from  Babil  southward  was  one  of  rare  delight 
and  interest.  It  was  through  gardens  and  cultivated  fields 
and  attractive  palm  groves  which  occupied  the  greater  part 
of  the  narrow  strip  of  fertile  land  which  separates  the 
Euphrates  from  the  great  city  of  ruins.  The  methods  em- 
ployed in  tilling  the  soil  here  are  the  same  as  those  used  in 
the  days  of  the  Jewish  Captivity.  There  is  the  same  primi- 
tive plow,  the  same  process  of  treading  out  and  winnowing 
grain,  the  same  methods  of  irrigating  the  land  as  obtained 
when  the  prophets  Daniel  and  Ezekiel  were  here  the 
teachers  and  the  consolers  of  their  exiled  countrymen. 


488  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGBAD  AND  BABYLON 

The  width  of  the  Euphrates  varies  according  to  the 
season.  As  the  rainfall  in  this  subtropical  land  is  rarely 
more  than  three  inches  a  year,  the  river  is  quite  shallow, 
except  when  its  bed  is  filled  by  the  annual  flood  from  the 
mountains  of  Armenia.  At  Babylon  it  is  rarely  more  than 
four  hundred  feet  wide ;  and  during  the  dry  season  its  sur- 
face is  considerably  below  its  banks.  For  this  reason  the 
inhabitants  from  the  earliest  times  have,  in  order  to  irrigate 
their  lands,  had  recourse  not  only  to  canals  but  also  to  vari- 
ous devices  for  lifting  water  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  level. 
Among  these  contrivances  are  the  dolab  or  chain  pump,  the 
na'ura  or  water  wheel,  and  the  djird,  a  huge  leather  bag, 
which,  when  filled  with  water  is,  by  means  of  a  simple 
machine  operated  by  an  ox,  lifted  the  desired  height  and 
automatically  emptied  into  the  channel  by  which  the  field 
or  garden  is  irrigated.  The  strident  notes  of  these  various 
water  elevators  and  the  accompanying  songs  of  the  native 
attendants  are  often  the  only  sounds  that  penetrate  the 
solemn  stillness  which  reigns  amid  the  venerable  ruins  that 
cover  the  ground  from  the  mound  of  Babil  on  the  north  to 
the  village  of  Djumdjuma  in  the  southern  part  of  Babylon. 

Herodotus  tells  us  that  in  his  time  the  Euphrates  divided 
the  city  into  *'two  distinct  portions."  But  the  present  bed 
of  the  shifting  river  is  considerably  to  the  westward  of 
that  which  existed  in  his  day.  As  a  result  of  this  shifting, 
the  western  part  of  the  city  has  almost  completely  dis- 
appeared, for  nothing  of  it  now  remains  on  the  right  side 
of  the  present  channel  except  slight  vestiges  of  its  once 
massive  walls.  The  same  writer  also  tells  us  that  the  two 
halves  of  the  city  were  connected  by  a  stone  bridge  which 
spanned  the  river  near  the  center  of  the  metropolis.  He 
attributes  this  feat  of  engineering  to  Queen  Nitocris,  but, 
as  there  is  no  record  of  this  queen,  either  in  Berosus  or  in 
the  Babylonian  inscriptions,  it  is  probable  that  Herodotus 
was  misinformed  about  her  existence,  or  that  he  had  in 
mind  Queen  Amuita,  the  Median  wife  of  Nebuchadnezzar, 
who  is  said  to  have  suggested  to  her  royal  consort  the  con- 


BABYLON  489 

struction  of  the  famous  hanging  gardens  which  were  long 
ranked  among  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world.  Diodorus,^^ 
however,  will  have  it  that  the  bridge  was  due  to  Semiramis, 
to  whom  antiquity  ascribes  many  other  of  Babylon's  most 
notable  works.  But  in  spite  of  the  determination  of  the 
ancient  historian  to  give  the  credit  of  this  remarkable 
achievement  to  a  woman,  and  in  spite  of  the  denials  of  many 
modern  writers  that  such  a  bridge  ever  existed,  or  that  its 
construction  was  even  possible  in  the  age  in  which  it  is  said 
to  have  been  built,  the  **  Deutsche  Orient-Gesellschaft"  in 
1910  actually  discovered  incontestable  remains  of  the  much 
disputed  bridge  and  demonstrated  that  its  construction  was 
due  not  to  Nitocris,  or  Amuita,  or  Semiramis,  but  to  the 
renowned  Nebuchadnezzar  or  to  his  father,  Nabopolassar. 
At  the  spot  once  occupied  by  the  eastern  bridgehead  of 
this  notable  structure  we  found  ourselves  on  the  famous 
Procession  Street  which  was  long  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able features  of  Babylon.  This  was  the  street  along  which 
passed  the  great  processions  of  Marduk-Merodach — the 
tutelar  deity  of  the  Chaldean  capital,  and  of  Nabu-Nebe — 
his  son.  In  this  respect  it  served  the  same  purpose  as  the 
magnificent  Via  Sacra,  which  extended  from  Athens  to 
Eleusis  and  which  was  used  by  the  solemn  Panathnaic  pro- 
cession which  was  annually  held  for  the  celebration,  in  the 
great  Elusinian  temple,  of  the  impressive  mysteries  of 
Demeter,  lacchus,  and  Persephone.  An  inscribed  brick 
recently  found  informs  us  of  the  part  Nebuchadnezzar  had 
in  the  construction  of  the  Sacred  Way  of  Babylon  and  gives 
us  the  characteristic  prayer  that  he  addressed  to  his  gods, 
which  reads : 

Nabu  and  Marduc,  when  you  traverse  these  streets  in 
joy,  may  benefits  for  me  rest  upon  your  lips ;  life  for  dis- 
tant days  and  well  being  for  the  body.  .  .  .  May  I  attain 
eternal  age.'** 

28  Op.  cit.,  II,  8. 
soKoldewey,  op.  cit.,  p.  54. 


490  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Passing  eastwards  along  Procession  Street  we  soon  find 
ourselves  between  the  two  ruins  of  the  great  temple  of 
Merodack  and  of  the  famous  Tower  of  Babylon. 

In  the  temple,  according  to  Herodotus,  there  was  a  sitting 
statue  of  Zeus — the  name  he  gives  to  the  god  Merodach — 
all  of  gold.  ''Before  the  figure  stands  a  large  golden  table 
and  the  throne  whereon  it  sits  and  the  base  on  which  the 
throne  is  placed  are  likewise  of  gold" — the  weight-  of 
the  gold  of  these  divers  objects  aggregating  eight  hundred 
talents. 

Nebuchadnezzar,  speaking  of  this  temple,  of  which  he 
calls  himself  ''the  fosterer,"  says  he  adorned  it  with  the 
wealth  of  the  sea  and  the  mountains  and  all  conceivable 
valuables, — gold  and  silver  and  precious  stones.  The  shrine 
of  Merodach,  he  declares,  "I  made  to  gleam  as  the  sun. 
The  best  of  my  cedars  that  I  brought  from  Lebanon,  the 
noble  forest,  I  sought  out  for  the  roofing  of  the  chamber 
of  his  lordship,  which  cedars  I  covered  with  gleaming  gold. 
For  the  restoration  of  this  temple  I  make  supplication 
every  morning  to  Merodach,  the  king  of  the  gods,  the  lord 
of  lords."  To  judge  from  his  inscriptions,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  find  a  pagan  king  who  was  more  prayerful  or 
who  exhibited  greater  devotion  to  his  gods  than  did  this 
proud  ruler  of  old  Babylonia. 

It  was  in  one  of  the  sanctuaries  of  this  temple,  appar- 
ently in  that  of  the  god  Ea,  lord  of  wisdom  and  life  and 
healer  of  the  sick — ^^vhom  the  Greeks  identified  with  Sera- 
pis — that  the  generals  of  Alexander  the  Great  "asked  the 
god  whether  it  would  be  better  and  more  desirable  for  Alex- 
ander," who  was  then  lying  critically  ill  in  a  palace  but  a 
bowshot  away,  "to  be  carried  into  his  temple  in  order  as 
a  suppliant  to  be  cured  by  him.  A  voice  issued  from  the 
god  saying  that  he  was  not  to  be  carried  into  the  temple 
but  that  it  would  be  better  form  to  remain  where  he  was. 
This  answer  was  reported  by  the  Companions  and  soon 


BABYLON  491 

after  Alexander  died  as  if,  forsooth,  this  were  now  the 
better  thing."  ^^ 

Alexander  had  planned  to  make  Babylon  the  capital  of 
his  world  empire,  but,  shortly  after  taking  possession  of  the 
city,  his  meteoric  career  in  the  prime  of  youthful  manhood, 
was  cut  short  by  death,  the  only  invincible  foe  he  had  ever 
encountered.  His  death  was  the  downfall  of  the  city  whence 
he  purposed  to  rule  both  Asia  and  Europe.  One  of  his  gen- 
erals, Seleucus  Nicator,  succeeded  him  as  ruler  of  Babylonia 
and  soon  thereafter  transferred  his  capital  from  the  banks 
of  the  sluggish  Euphrates  ^^  to  a  new  city,  Seleucia,  named 
after  himself,  which  he  had  founded  on  the  banks  of  the 
swift-flowing  Tigris.  And  it  was  not  long  after  this  that 
the  great  metropolis  of  Babylonia,  which  for  nearly  two 
thousand  years  had  been  the  leading  capital  of  the  ancient 
world  and  which  had  so  long  been  ''the  glory  of  the  king- 
doms and  the  beauty  of  the  Chaldees  excellency"  had  liter- 
ally, in  the  words  of  Isaiah,  become  the  habitation  of  the 
wild  beasts  of  the  desert  and  was  reduced  to  such  a  state  of 
decay  that,  according  to  St.  Jerome,^'  its  walls,  once  the 
marvel  of  the  world,  served  only  to  enclose  a  hunting  park 
for  the  diversion  of  the  Parthian  Kings. 

A  furlong  to  the  north  of  the  temple  of  Merodach  is  the 
ruin  of  the  famous  tower  of  Babylon,  which  by  many  has 
been  considered  identical  with  the  Tower  of  Babil.  So 
colossal  was  it  that  the  Babylonians  called  it  ''the  founda- 
tion stone  of  heaven  and  earth, ' '  and  Nebuchadnezzar,  who 
contributed  materially  towards  its  restoration  and  enlarge- 
ment, declared  in  an  inscription  that  he  had  raised  the  top 
of  the  tower  "to  rival  heaven,"  but  this  was  a  form  of 
oriental  exaggeration  in  which  this  monarch  frequently 
indulged.     Herodotus  tells  us  that  it  was  a  stadium — six 

81  Arrian's  Anabasis  of  Alexander,  Bk.  VII,  Chap.  XXVI. 

32  According  to  the  measurements  of  Rich,  the  current  of  the  Euphrates 
runs  at  a  medium  rate  of  about  two  knots  an  hour  while  that  of  the  Tigris 
has  a  maximum  velocity  of  full  seven  knots. 

88  Commentary  on  Isaias,  Bk.  V,  Chap.  XIII,  Patrologice  Latince,  Vol.  XXIV 
(Migne,  Paris,  1865). 


492  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

hundred  feet  "in  length  and  breadth,  upon  which  was 
raised  a  second  tower  and  on  that  a  third,  and  so  on  up  to 
the  eighth,  above  which  there  is  a  great  temple. ' '  "  Accord- 
ing to  Strabo,^"  this  quadrangular  pyramid  was  ''five  hun- 
dred feet  high'' — ^nineteen  feet  higher  than  the  great  pyra- 
mid of  Gizeh.  As,  however,  the  existing  ruin  of  the  tower 
of  Babylon  has  not  yet  been  excavated  it  is  impossible,  by 
actual  measurements,  to  control  the  statements  of  ancient 
writers  regarding  its  magnitude.  But,  from  an  old  in- 
scribed tablet  which  has  been  translated  by  the  noted 
Orientalist,  G.  Smith,  and  more  recently  by  Father  Scheil, 
the  distinguished  French  Dominican,  we  gather  that  the 
estimates  of  the  Greek  writers  were  probably  excessive, 
for,  according  to  the  tablet  in  question,  the  summit  of  the 
tower  was  only  three  hundred  feet  above  the  surrounding 
plain. 

Diodorus  ^^  informs  us  that  this  tower  was  used  by  the 
Chaldeans  as  an  astronomical  observatory.  In  the  thick, 
dust-laden  atmosphere  of  Babylonia,  where  sand  storms  are 
80  frequent,  such  a  lofty  structure  would  be  quite  a  neces- 
sity for  the  successful  observations  of  the  priest  astrono- 
mers of  Babylonia.  ''The  greatly  renowned  clearness  of 
the  Babylonian  sky,"  as  Koldewey  truly  observes,  "is 
largely  a  fiction  of  European  travelers  who  are  rarely 
accustomed  to  observe  the  night  sky  of  Europe  without  the 
intervention  of  city  lights."  ®^  Cicero,  therefore,  was  quite 
as  mistaken  as  modern  travelers  when  he  thought  that  the 
broad  plains  of  Chaldea,  where  the  sky  was  visible  on  all 
sides,^®  were  specially  favorable  to  star-gazing  and  the 
cultivation  of  astronomy.  Equally  misled  was  the  poet  who 
sang  of  Chaldean  shepherds  who 

84  Op.  cit.,  Bk.  I,  Chap.  181. 

8B  Geography,  Bk.  XVI,  Chap.  I,  Sec.  6. 

86  Op.  cit.,  p.  196. 

87  Ibid.,  p.  196. 

88"Principio    Assyrii" — the     Chaldeans "propter    planitiem    magnitudi- 

nemque  regionum  quos  incolebant,  cum  coelum  ex  omni  parte  patens  et 
apertum  intuerentur,  trajectiones  motusque  stellarum  observaverunt."  De 
Divinatione,  Lib.  I. 


BABYLON  493 

Watched  from  the  centre  of  their  sleeping  flocks 
Those  radiant  Mercuries  that  seemed  to  move. 
Carrying  through  ether,  in  perpetual  round, 
Decrees  and  resolutions  of  the  gods; 
And,  hy  their  aspects,  signifying  works 
Of  dim  futurity  to  man  revealed. 

No,  it  was  not  those  shepherds  **in  boundless  solitude" 
who  **made  report  of  stars,"  but  the  Babylonian  priests 
who,  from  the  summits  of  their  zikurrats,  or  temple- 
towers,  laid  the  foundations,  broad  and  deep,  of  the  sublime 
science  of  astronomy  centuries  before  Hipparchus  and 
Ptolemy  began  those  admirable  investigations  which  have 
rendered  them  immortal. 

All  the  ruins  of  Babylon  which  we  had  hitherto  inspected 
had  greatly  impressed  us,  but  we  did  not  yet  have  a  con- 
crete idea  of  the  greatness  and  splendor  of  the  capital  of 
the  Babylonian  Kings  until  we  visited  that  part  which  the 
Arabs  still  call  the  Kasr,  or  castle.  It  was  the  great  palace 
which  was  begun  by  Nabopolassar  and  completed  by  his 
illustrious  son,  Nebuchadnezzar.  By  the  Roman  historians 
it  was  called  the  Arx,  by  the  Greeks  the  Acropolis.  It 
served  not  only  as  a  citadel  but  also  as  the  favored  residence 
of  the  king  and  as  the  approach  to  the  great  temple  of 
Merodach,  already  referred  to,  which  was  the  most  famous 
sanctuary  in  Babylonia. 

Not  until  we  saw  the  wonderful  ruins  of  the  Kasr,  which 
have  in  great  measure  been  excavated,  were  we  able  to 
appreciate  the  enormous  amount  of  work  which  Dr.  Kolde- 
wey  and  his  associates  have  here  accomplished  and  the 
splendid  contributions  which  they  have  made  to  the  science 
of  Assyriology  and  to  our  knowledge  respecting  the  greatest 
capital  of  the  ancient  world. 

The  massiveness  of  the  walls  of  the  citadel — some  of 
them  more  than  fifty  feet  in  thickness — and  the  vastness 
of  Nebuchadnezzar's  palace  with  its  countless  chambers 
were  amazing.    But  even  more  noteworthy  were  the  rem- 


494  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

nants  of  the  Sacred  Way,  which  were  once  adorned  with 
scores  of  life-size  figures  of  lions  made  of  brilliantly  enam- 
eled bricks,  and  the  great  Ishtar  Gate  which  spanned  Baby- 
lon's  Via  Sacra,  where  it  entered  the  older  city.  The 
hundreds  of  bulls  and  dragons,  in  brick  relief,  which  cover 
the  walls,  and  the  delicate  modeling  of  the  figures  prove 
conclusively  that  the  glyptic  art  of  the  Neo-Babylonian 
period  must  have  attained  a  very  high  degree  of  perfection. 

Before  the  discovery  of  these  wonderful  works  of  art, 
Koldewey  was  disposed  to  be  quite  skeptical  about  the 
traditional  splendor  of  Babylon,  but,  when  he  unearthed 
the  marvels  of  the  Sacred  Way  and  the  Ishtar  Gate,  which 
is  "the  largest  and  most  striking  ruin  of  Babylon,"  he  was 
compelled  to  admit  that  the  fabled  splendor  of  the  city 
was  not  without  foundation. 

Adjoining  Ishtar  Gate  are  what  are  supposed  to  be  the 
remains  of  the  famous  Hanging  Gardens  which  antiquity 
classed  among  the  Seven  Wonders  of  the  World.  But  a 
view  of  the  semicircular  arches  which  are  said  to  have  sup- 
ported these  gardens  makes  it  difficult  to  understand  why 
they  were  called  hanging — pensiles  hortus — as  described 
by  Quintus  Curtius  ®^  and  other  ancient  writers.  So  far  as 
one  can  judge  by  an  inspection  of  the  ruins  now  visible,  this 
wonder  of  antiquity  was  nothing  more  than  an  elevated 
garden  court  and  far  less  of  a  miraculum,  as  the  Roman 
historian  calls  it,  than  is  an  ordinary  roof  garden  on  one 
of  our  modern  ''sky-scrapers." 

In  the  same  palace,  of  which  the  Hanging  Gardens  formed 
so  conspicuous  an  ornament,  is  shown  the  large  throne 
room  of  the  Babylonian  Kings.  Speaking  of  this  Dr.  Kolde- 
wey does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  ''it  is  so  clearly  marked 
out  for  this  purpose  that  no  reasonable  doubt  can  be  felt 
as  to  its  having  been  used  as  their — the  Kings' — principal 
audience  chamber."  And  he  furthermore  adds:  "If  any- 
one should  desire  to  localize  the  scene  of  Belshazzar's 

*•  Op,  cit.,  Lib.  V,  Cap.  I. 


BABYLON  495 

eventful  banquet,  he  can  surely  place  it  with  complete 
accuracy  in  this  immense  room. ' '  *° 

Among  the  other  objects  of  interest  among  the  marvelous 
complexus  of  ruins  are  a  huge  lion  of  basalt,  the  remains 
of  Persian  and  Parthian  buildings  and  the  debris  of  a 
Greek  theater  which,  one  may  believe,  was  founded  by  Alex- 
ander the  Great  for  the  benefit  of  his  countrymen  who,  in 
this  remote  capital  of  the  East,  would  have  been  quite 
loath  to  forego  those  intellectual  amusements  to  which  they 
had  been  so  devoted  in  the  land  of  their  birth. 

So  much  has  our  knowledge  of  Babylon  been  increased 
by  the  excavation  of  one-half  of  the  city  that  we  hope  that 
Dr.  Koldewey  and  his  scholarly  associates  will  be  able  to 
uncover  the  other  half.  Should  anything  interfere  with 
their  completion  of  the  great  undertaking  in.  which  they  had 
already  achieved  such  splendid  results,  both  science  and 
history  would  suffer  a  loss  that  cannot  easily  be  estimated. 

From  an  examination  of  the  ruins  of  Babylon,  that  which 
most  impresses  one  is  the  immense  size  of  the  city,  of  its 
walls  and  palaces  and  temples,  and  that  tower  of  Belus 
which  "the  Jews  of  the  Old  Testament  regarded  as  the 
essence  of  human  presumption."  Compared  with  these 
colossal  ruins  the  remains  of  such  celebrated  cities  as 
Delphi  and  Sparta  and  Olympia  fade  almost  into  insig- 
nificance. 

From  the  descriptions  of  the  Babylonian  capital  left  us 
by  the  writers  of  antiquity,  the  dominant  impression  made 
on  us  is  that  of  the  wealth  and  splendor  and  magnificence 
of  this  famous  metropolis.  This  impression  is  emphasized 
by  the  inscriptions  of  its  kings,  who  tell  us  how  lavishly 
their  palaces  and  temples  were  embellished  by  the  rarest 
woods  of  the  East  and  by  vast  quantities  of  ivory  and  silver 
and  gold.  Thus  Asurbanipal  proudly  declares,  *'I  filled 
Esagilla  with  silver  and  gold  and  precious  stones  and  made 
Ekua  to  shine  as  the  constellations  in  the  sky."  And 
Nebuchadnezzar  rejoices  in  the  treasures  of  art  and  learn- 

_  ,  _  I-   

<o  Op,  oit.,  p,  103. 


496  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

ing  which  he  had  accumulated  in  his  palace  for  "the 
amazement  of  mankind. ' ' 

But  how  are  these  grandiloquent  statements  of  monarchs 
and  historians  substantiated  by  the  investigations  of  the 
*  *  Deutsche  Orient-Gessellschaf  t ' '  ?    That  Babylon 

Far 
Outshone  the  wealth  of  Ormus  and  of  Ind; 

that,  as  a  trade  center,  its  activities  extended  from 

Indus  to  the  Nile 
Or  Caspian  wave  or  Oman's  rocky  shore, 

there  is  no  room  for  doubt.  But  from  the  glowing  descrip- 
tions of  the  Greek  and  Latin  writers,  we  are  also  led  to 
infer  that  the  buildings  of  the  city — especially  its  temples 
and  palaces — rivaled  in  beauty  and  grandeur  the  imposing 
structures  of  Athens  under  Pericles  and  the  sumptuous 
edifices  of  Rome  under  Augustus.  The  discoveries,  how- 
ever, of  the  German  excavators  compel  us  greatly  to  revise 
many  of  our  notions  regarding  the  famed  palm-embosomed 
capital  on  the  Euphrates. 

One  of  their  most  startling  revelations  is  that,  so  far  as 
their  investigations  enable  them  to  determine,  hewn  stone 
was  employed  "in  bulk  for  building,"  only  in  the  construc- 
tion of  the  northern  wall  of  the  Kasr,  the  Sacred  Way,  the 
bridge  over  the  Euphrates  and  in  the  arches  that  supported 
the  Hanging  Gardens.  In  this  respect  Babylon  was  far 
behind  Nineveh,  its  great  Assyrian  rival,  where  stone  was 
a  common  building  material.  Nearly  all  of  its  buildings, 
even  its  most  lauded  temples,  were  composed  chiefly  of  sun- 
dried  bricks.  Only  in  certain  parts  of  the  larger  temples 
were  kiln-dried  bricks  employed.  What  a  contrast  between 
such  mud  structures  and  the  superb  marble  temples  of 
Baalbec  and  Palmyra,  or  the  highly  polished  granite  fanes 
of  Thebes  and  Abydos  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile !  What  a 
contrast,  even,  between  the  mud  temple  of  Marduk — ^the 


BABYLON  497 

greatest  in  Babylonia — and  the  immense  stone  Temple  of 
the  Sun  erected  by  the  Incas  of  Peru  in  their  capital 
of  Cuzco! 

The  dwelling  houses  of  Babylon,  according  to  Herodotus, 
were  mostly  three  or  four  stories  high.  So  far,  however, 
the  evidence  based  on  excavations  goes  to  prove  that  private 
houses  were  of  but  a  single  story.  They  were  probably, 
like  most  of  the  one-story  houses  in  Babylonia  to-day — with 
flat  mud  roofs  which  served  as  dormitories  during  the 
intense  heat  of  summer.  Such  dwellings  were  almost 
exactly  like  the  modern  one-story  adobe  houses  everywhere 
visible  in  New  and  Old  Mexico.  The  Mexican  houses,  how- 
ever, have  windows,  while  those  in  Babylon  had  none — at 
least  on  the  side  facing  the  street.  In  this  respect,  how- 
ever, they  were  not  unlike  so  many  dwelling  houses  seen  in 
the  Near  East  to-day. 

As  I  contemplated  the  large  mud  buildings  of  ancient 
Babylon,  I  could  not  but  compare  them  with  those  of  the 
Great  Chimu,  whose  ruins  are  now  among  the  most  remark- 
able remains  of  pre-Hispanic  Peru.  To  look  at  them  one 
would  imagine  that  some  jinnee  had  picked  up  a  section  of 
the  Babylonian  city  and  transported  it  to  the  far-distant 
shore  of  the  South  Pacific.^^ 

With  the  exception  of  the  Sacred  Way  and  a  few  other 
streets,  the  thoroughfares  of  Babylon  were  unpaved.  But 
none  of  them,  not  even  the  great  Via  Sacra,  although  pol- 
ished by  long  and  continuous  use,  exhibits  any  trace,  as  do 
the  pavements  of  Pompeii,  of  having  ever  been  used  for 
wheeled  traffic.  This  would  seem  to  indicate  that  such 
traffic,  even  in  the  Neo-Babylonian  period,  was  rare  or  non- 
existent. 

Still  more  surprising  is  the  fact  that  the  excavations, 
outside  of  some  of  the  larger  buildings,  show  but  few  traces 
of  a  drainage  system.    How  so  large  and  flourishing  a  city 


41  For  a  deseription  of  the  ruins  of  Cuzco  and  the  Great  Chimu,  as  com- 
pared with  those  of  Babvlon,  see  Aloitfi  the  Andes  and  Down  the  Amazon, 
Chaps.  XIII,  XV  (by  J.  A.  Zahm,  New  York,  1911). 


498  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

could  have  endured  so  long  without  one  is  a  mystery  that 
remains  to  be  solved. 

In  the  light,  then,  of  the  German  excavations,  it  is  appar- 
ent that  Babylon,  on  whose  splendor  and  magnificence  the 
old  classical  writers  so  loved  to  dilate,  and  concerning  whose 
beauty  and  grandeur  legend  and  tradition  have  long  spun 
such  wonderful  fairy  tales,  was  a  city  that  was  remarkable 
rather  for  the  vastness  of  its  public  buildings  than  for  their 
elegance  of  design  or  beauty  of  execution.  Even  the  tem- 
ples and  palaces  were  low,  squat  structures  with  flat  mud 
roofs  and  were,  from  an  architectural  point  of  view,  quite 
inferior  to  many  caravanseries  that  one  may  now  find  in 
various  parts  of  the  East.  Such  ornaments  as  they  pos- 
sessed were  evidences  of  barbaric  richness  and  prodigality 
and  showed  none  of  the  purity  of  taste  that  so  characterized 
the  matchless  creations  of  Phidias  and  Ictinus. 

But,  although  Babylon  was,  in  its  architectural  features, 
a  much  overrated  city,  it  has,  nevertheless,  deserved  well 
of  the  world  and  has  contributed  to  the  advance  of  civiliza- 
tion as  did  few  other  cities  before  the  rise  of  Athens  and 
Rome.  For,  as  has  been  observed,  Babylon  is  **the  oldest 
seat  of  earthly  empire."  And  ''when  the  West  was 
shrouded  in  a  darkness  that  neither  history  nor  tradition 
can  penetrate,  .  .  .  while  wild  beasts  or  naked  savages 
roamed  over  the  future  sites  of  Athens  and  Rome  and  Flor- 
ence and  London,"*^  Babylon  was  laying  the  foundations 
of  art  and  science,  of  law  and  literature  and  of  that  civiliza- 
tion which  was  subsequently  developed  and  elaborated  by 
the  great  nations  of  the  West. 

Trade  and  commerce  and  agriculture  [asserts  Delitzsch] 
were  at  their  prime  and  th^  sciences — geometry,  mathemat- 
ics, and,  above  all,  astronomy,  had  reached  a  degree  of 
development  which  again  and  again  moves  even  the  astron- 
omers of  to-day  to  admiration  and  astonishment.  Not  Paris, 

*2  The  History  and  Conquests  of  the  Saracens,  p.  2  et  seq.  (by  E.  A.  Pree- 
maji,  London,  1877). 


BABYLON  499 

at  the  outside  Rome,  can  compete  with  Babylon  in  respect 
to  the  influence  which  it  exercised  upon  the  world  through- 
out two  thousand  years.** 

It  has  been  the  custom,  time  out  of  mind,  to  speak  of 
Egypt  as  the  cradle  of  civilization.  And  there  was  reason 
for  this.  For  her  venerable  monuments — ^her  pyramids  and 
temples  and  obelisks  and  colossal  rock — sculptures — ^which 
seemed  to  be  coeval  with  the  dawn  of  history,  appear  to 
justify  the  theory  that  our  race  here  took  its  first  steps 
forward  in  its  great  career  of  material  and  intellectual 
development.  But  recent  investigations  among  the  ruins 
along  the  Euphrates  prove  that  Babylonia  is  entitled  to 
the  honor  which  has  so  long  been  so  freely  accorded  to  the 
valley  of  the  Nile. 

The  proofs  of  this  thesis  are  as  numerous  as  interesting ; 
and,  so  far  as  inductive  evidence  goes,  are  practically  con- 
clusive. But  most  of  them  are  of  so  recondite  a  character 
that  they  can  be  properly  discussed  only  in  special  works 
bearing  on  the  archaeology  and  prehistory  of  the  two  coun- 
tries in  question.  One  may,  however,  be  permitted  to 
indicate  a  few  of  the  more  obvious  reasons  which  have  led 
Orientalists  to  conclude  that  the  civilization  in  the  land  of 
the  Pharaohs  had  its  origin  in  Babylonia. 

Thus,  recent  discoveries  in  Upper  Egypt  seem  to  prove 
beyond  doubt  that  there  was  intercourse  between  the  two 
countries  in  prehistoric  times  and  that,  as  a  result  of  this 
early  communication,  wheat  was  first  introduced  from  the 
valley  of  the  Euphrates  to  that  of  the  Nile.  Another  con- 
sequence of  the  intercourse  between  the  two  lands  was  that 
the  Egyptians  became  acquainted  with  the  Babylonian  sys- 
tem of  irrigation — a  system  which  had  rendered  the  soil 
of  Babylonia  the  most  productive  in  the  then  known  world. 
Babylonian  engineers,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  introduced 
into  Egypt  the  shadoff  and  the  sakieh  or  water  wheel,  both 
of  which  were  Babylonian  inventions,  as  is  clearly  attested 

*iBalel  and  Bibel,  p.  36,  37  (London,  1903). 


500  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

by  early  Assyrian  bas-reliefs  and  by  still  earlier  Sumerian 
inscriptions. 

Yet  more  exhaustive  researches  regarding  the  early 
script  used  in  the  two  countries  and  the  relations  of  the 
language  of  Babylonia,  which  was  a  Semetic  tongue,  to 
that  of  Egypt  lead  to  the  same  conclusion  as  do  investiga- 
tions respecting  the  introduction  of  wheat' from  the  land  of 
the  Euphrates,  where  it  still  grows  wild,  into  that  of  the 
Nile,  and  the  identity  of  the  irrigation  machines  which  have 
been  in  continuous  use  in  both  lands  for  thousands  of  years. 

It  may,  indeed,  be  admitted  that  no  one  of  these  facts  is, 
of  itself,  sufl5cient  to  demonstrate  that  the  culture  and  the 
engineering  science  of  Egypt  were  Babylonian  in  origin; 
but,  when  they  are  all  found  to  point  in  the  same  direction, 
the  argument  based  on  them  has  a  cumulative  force  that  is 
quite  unassailable.  Dr.  Sayce  gives  judgment  in  a  single 
sentence  when  he  declares  *4t  is  difficult  to  avoid  the  con- 
clusion that  the  Semitic-speaking  people  who  brought  the 
science  of  irrigation  and  the  art  of  writing  to  the  banks  of 
the  Nile  came,  like  the  wheat  they  cultivated,  from  the 
Babylonian  plain. "  ** 

Those,  however,  who  are  interested  in  this  fascinating 
theory,  which  ascribes  to  Babylonia  not  only  Egyptian 
civilization  but  also  the  ancestors  of  the  historical  Egyp- 
tians, should  read  the  remarkable  work  on  the  subject  by 
Professor  Hommel — a  work  *^  of  profound  scholarship  and 
one  which  has  convinced  many  of  the  most  eminent  Orient- 
alists that  there  can  no  longer  be  any  doubt  that  the  civiliza- 
tion and  culture  of  Egypt  came  originally  from  Babylonia. 

But  interesting  as  are  the  discoveries  respecting  the  cul- 
tural relations  between  the  two  countries  in  question,  no 
notice  of  Babylonia  would  be  complete  without  some  refer- 
ence to  her  contributions  to  the  science  of  astronomy.  Here 
we  have  more  positive  information  than  has  hitherto  been 
available  regarding  the  primeval  intercourse  between  the 

**The  ArchcBology  of  the  Cuneiform  Inscriptions,  p.  Ill   (London,  1908). 
*B  Entitled  Der  baiylonische  Vrsprung  der  agyptischen  Kultur   (1892). 


BABYLON  501 

peoples  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Nile.  As  one  might 
expect,  however,  in  dealing  with  subjects  carrying  us  back 
into  the  mists  of  antiquity,  we  find  that  the  question  of 
Babylonian  astronomy  is  one  that  is  deeply  involved  in 
myth  and  legend,  but  such  myths  and  legends  as  help  to 
corroborate  the  findings  of  historians  and  archaeologists 
concerning  the  labors  of  the  astronomers  of  old  Chaldea. 

Even  in  the  question  regarding  the  origin  of  astronomy, 
as  in  that  concerning  the  beginnings  of  civil  engineering  in 
Egypt,  we  note  the  same  old  debate  among  the  learned 
as  to  who  were  the  more  ancient  astronomers,  the  Egyp- 
tians or  the  Babylonians.  The  people  of  the  Nileland 
boasted  that  Hermes  or  Osiris  was  the  founder  of  their 
astronomical  system,  while  the  Chaldeans,  that  is  the  Baby- 
lonians, claimed  that  the  first  astronomer  was  Belus,*®  the 
son  of  Nimrod,  who  was  the  grandson  of  Noah  and  the 
reputed  builder  of  the  Tower  of  Babel.  This  tower,  often 
confused  with  the  tower  of  Bel  described  by  Herodotus, 
was,  according  to  Chaldean  legend,  the  first  astronomical 
observatory. 

It  was  not,  however,  thousands  of  years  before  the  Chris- 
tian era,  as  certain  writers  would  have  us  believe,  that 
Chaldean  astronomy  became  an  exact  science.  This  was 
not  possible  and  for  a  very  simple  reason — ^the  absence  of 
a  strict  chronology  to  which  the  Chaldean  observers  of  the 
heavens  did  not  attain  until  747  B.  C,  when  they  adopted 
what  is  known  as  the  era  of  Nabonnassar.  Previously  there 
could  be  no  certainty  regarding  the  calculation  of  time. 
Not,  indeed,  until  the  first  recorded  eclipse,  March  21, 
721  B.  C,  was  astronomy  raised  to  the  dignity  of  an  exact 
science. 

In  fact,  during  the  first  twenty  or  thirty  centuries  of 
Mesopotamian  history  [writes  the  distinguished  Belgian 
savant,  Franz  Cumont]  nothing  is  found  but  empirical  ob- 

4"  Pliny,  speaking  of  Belus,  eays :  "Inventor  hie  f uit  sideralis  scientite, 
Naturalis  Historiee,"  Lib.  VI.  Cap.  30. 


502  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

servations,  intended  chiefly  to  indicate  omens,  and  the  rudi- 
mentary knowledge  which  these  observations  display  is 
hardly  in  advance  of  that  of  the  Egyptians,  the  Chinese  or 
the  Aztecs.*^ 

It  is  only  during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  that 
we  have  been  able  to  determine  the  advances  made  by 
astronomy  at  different  periods  of  Babylonian  history  and 
we  owe  this  knowledge  almost  entirely  to  the  persistent 
labors  of  three  Jesuits,  Fathers  Epping,  Kugler,  and 
Straszmaier/®  By  a  long  and  careful  study  of  the  cunei- 
form inscriptions  bearing  on  astronomy,  many  of  which 
they  have  deciphered,  interpreted,  and  published,  they  have, 
for  the  first  time,  put  the  history  of  Babylonian  astronomy 
on  a  firm,  scientic  basis.  And  they  have  at  the  same  time 
completely  dissipated  the  poetical  fancy  of  "Chaldean 
shepherds  discovering  the  causes  of  eclipses  while  watching 
their  flocks"  and  the  oft  repeated  fable  that  it  was  Baby- 
lonian astronomers  who  discovered  the  precession  of  the 
equinoxes — an  achievement  that  was  due  to  the  genius  of 
Hipparchus  of  Nicaea. 

Thanks,  however,  to  the  researches  of  the  three  savants 
named,  it  must  now  be  conceded  that  certain  discoveries 
which  have  hitherto  been  attributed  to  Hipparchus  should 
be  credited  to  the  astronomers  of  Babylonia.  Among  these 
were  discoveries  regarding  the  inequalities  of  the  lengths 
of  the  seasons,  the  methods  of  determining  in  advance  the 
phenomena  of  the  five  known  planets,  the  duration  of  their 
synodic  revolutions,  and  the  dates  of  the  phases  and  eclipses 
of  the  moon.  In  a  remarkable  cuneiform  inscription,  dated 
as  early  as  523  B.  C,  is  given  what  is  practically  a  monthly 
ephemeris  not  only  of  the  sun  and  moon  and  eclipses  but 
also  the  more  notable  phenomena  of  the  planets.     With 

^''Astrology  and  Religion  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  p.  8  (New  York, 
1912). 

48  See  especially  Astronomisches  aus  Babylon,  oder  das  Wissen  der  Chal- 
daer  uber  den  gestirnten  Eimmel  (by  J.  Epping,  in  collaboration  with  J. 
Straszmaier,  Freiburg  im  Breisgau,  1889)  ;  Die  Babylonische  Mondrechnung 
(by  F.  Kugler,  Freiburg  im  Breisgau,  1900). 


BABYLON  503 

reason  does  Father  Kugler  consider  this  ''the  oldest  known 
document  of  the  scientific  astronomy  of  the  Chaldeans. '^ 
And  so  greatly  is  he  impressed  by  the  marvelous  astronomi- 
cal tables  which  were  constructed  by  the  priest  astronomers 
of  Babylonia  that  he  declares : 

One  does  not  know  which  to  admire  the  more,  the 
extraordinary  accuracy  of  the  periods  which  is  implied  by 
the  drawing  up  of  each  of  the  columns  of  figures  or  the 
ingenuity  with  which  these  old  masters  contrived  to  com- 
bine all  the  factors  to  be  considered/^ 

Recent  research  has  also  shown  that  some  of  the  very 
accurate  calculations  of  lunar  periods  which,  from  the  time 
of  Ptolemy,  have  been  attributed  to  Hipparchus,  should  in 
reality  be  ascribed  to  the  astronomers  of  Babylonia/"  That 
these  ancient  observers,  who  had  none  of  the  instruments 
of  precision  which  are  now  available  in  our  observatories, 
should  have  been  able  to  make  so  exact  calculations  is  mar- 
velous in  the  extreme. 

Equally  noteworthy  were  the  discoveries  of  the  hellenized 
Chaldean,  Seleucus,  who  proved  that  the  movement  of  the 
tides  is  due  to  the  action  of  the  moon  and  who,  contrary  to 
the  view  which  then  generally  prevailed,  taught  the  helio- 
centric theory  of  the  solar  system — ^nearly  two  thousand 

49  Cf.  Dumont  op.  cit.,  p.  60. 

60  A  comparison  of  the  lunar  periods  as  given  by  Babylonian  and  by  modern 
astronomers  will  show  how  exact  were  the  calculations  of  the  observers  of 
ancient  Chaldea. 

Periods  as  calculated  by  Babylonian  astronomers: 

Mean  sidereal  month. . .   27  days,     7  hours,  43'  14" 
Mean  synodic  month  ...   29  days,  12  hours,  44'  31.3" 
Mean  draconitic  month.   27  days,    6  hours,    5'  35.8" 
Mean  anomalistic  month  27  days,  13  hours^^lS'  34.9" 
Periods  as  calculated  by  modern  astronomers: 

Mean  sidereal  month .. .   27  days,     7  hours,  43'  11.5" 
Mean   synodic   month. .   29  days,  12  hours,  44'     2.9" 
Mean  draconitic  month  27  days,     5  hours,     5'  36" 
Mean  anomalistic  month  27  days,  13  hours,     18.39.3" 
From  the  foregoing  figures  it  is  seen  that  the  maximum  difference  of  time, 
as  given  by  ancient  and  modern  observers,  is  less  than  a  half  minute;  the 
minimum  one-fifth  of  a  second  I    See  Kugler's  Die  Babyloniache  Mondrechnung, 
pp.  24,  40,  46. 


504  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

years  before  the  epochal  achievements  of  Copernicus  and 
Galileo. 

The  foregoing  paragraphs  clearly  evince  that  it  was  the 
Babylonians  who  laid  the  foundations  of  astronomy,  and 
not,  as  Buckle,  Draper,  and  others  would  have  us  believe, 
the  Arabians  under  the  Caliphate.  *'The  place  of  honor 
in  science,  therefore,'* — a  place  which  for  ages  was  con- 
ceded to  the  Babylonians  and  which,  through  Father 
Epping's  studies,  has  been  won  for  them  anew — ''will 
henceforth  remain  to  them  uncontested  and  incontestable. ' '" 

In  order,  however,  to  have  a  correct  idea  of  the  far- 
reaching  influence  of  Babylonian  civilization,  one  must  know 
more  about  it  than  its  contribution  to  science,  art,  and 
literature.  One  must  know  something  about  the  social  con- 
dition of  the  people  and  of  their  manners  and  customs  as 
described  in  their  history  and  reflected  in  their  laws.  For 
this  a  few  words  will  suffice  and  these  will  be  based  on  the 
wonderful  code  of  Hammurabi,  the  king  who  ruled  over 
Babylonia  more  than  two  thousand  years  before  our  era 
and  who  was  the  real  founder  of  her  greatness.®^ 

It  is  true  that  the  great  legal  code  which  bears  his  name 
was,  like  all  other  ancient  codes,  based  to  a  great  extent  on 
precedent  and  on  earlier  collections  of  laws,  some  of  which, 
there  is  reason  to  believe,  antedated  Hammurabi's  great 
compilation  by  more  than  a  thousand  years.  But  it  is 
because  it  is  chiefly  a  codification  of  preexisting  laws  that 
the  great  code  of  the  Babylonian  King  is  so  valuable  and 
instructive.  We  find  that,  unlike  the  warlike  Assyrians, 
the  Babylonians  were  not  only  a  peaceable  and  intelligent 


Bi  Kugler  op.  cit.,  p.  206. 

62  Hammurabi's  code  which  is  carefully  engraved  on  a  large  stele  of  black 
diorite  was  found  by  M.  de  Morgan  and  the  distinguished  Dominican  archaeo- 
logist, Father  Scheil,  among  the  ruins  of  Susa — the  Susan  of  the  Bible — 
whither  it  had  been  carried  from  Babylon  as  loot  by  the  Elamites.  When 
found  in  December,  1901,  and  January,  1902,  it  was  in  fragments  but  the  parts 
were  easily  rejoined.  In  October,  1902,  there  appeared  an  admirable  transla- 
tion of  it  by  Father  Scheil  which  everywhere  excited  the  greatest  interest  among 
scholars  both  of  the  Old  and  the  New  World.  In  many  respects,  it  is  the  most 
interesting  and  valuable  inscribed  monument  of  old  Babylonia  which  has  yet 
been  brought  to  light. 


BABYLON  505 

but  also  a  very  humane  and  deeply  religious  people.  In  the 
words  of  one  who  has  made  a  special  study  of  the  history 
and  laws  of  the  people  over  whom  Hammurabi  bore  rule 
for  forty-three  years : 

It  is  startling  to  find  how  much  that  we  have  thought 
distinctly  our  own  has  really  come  down  to  us  from  that 
great  people  who  ruled  the  Land  of  the  Two  Streams.  We 
need  not  be  ashamed  of  anything  we  can  trace  back  so  far. 
It  is  from  no  savage  ancestors  that  it  descends  to  us.  It 
bears  the  *'hall  mark"  not  only  of  extreme  antiquity  but 
of  sterling  worth.  ...  A  right-thinking  citizen  of  a  mod- 
ern city  would  probably  feel  more  at  home  in  ancient  Baby- 
lon than  in  mediaeval  Europe."' 

Among  the  laws  of  the  great  Babylonian  legislator  that 
are  especially  remarkable  are  those  which  safeguard  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  married  women.  That  such  laws 
should  have  been  enacted  and  enforced  more  than  four 
thousand  years  ago  shows  better  than  anything  else  the 
high  plane  of  social  progress  to  which  the  Babylonians  had 
thus  early  attained.  To  quote  from  the  distinguished 
Orientalist,  L.  W.  King,  they  ''throw  an  interesting  light 
on  the  position  of  the  married  woman  in  the  Babylonian 
community,  which  was  not  only  unexampled  in  antiquity 
but  compares  favorably  in  point  of  freedom  and  inde- 
pendence with  her  status  in  many  countries  in  modem 
Europe."" 

One  of  the  many  results  of  the  discovery  of  Hammurabi's 
Code  was,  curiously  enough,  completely  to  demolish  a  favor- 
ite argument  of  certain  Biblical  critics  respecting  the  laws 
of  Moses.  So  elaborate  a  legislative  code  as  that  attributed 
to  the  Jewish  lawgiver  was,  they  contended,  quite  improb- 
able at  the  early  date  assigned  to  it,  and  it  must,  therefore, 
have  had  its  origin  at  a  subsequent  period  when  society  was 


58  Babylonian  and  Assyrian  Laws,  Contracts  and  Letters,  pp.  vii,  viii  (by  C. 
H.  W.  Johns,  New  York,  1904). 
6«  Op.  cit.,  p.  186. 


506  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

more  highly  organized.  It  must,  then,  the  critics  main- 
tained, have  been  the  work  of  the  Jewish  priesthood  in  the 
later  days  of  Israel,  who,  in  order  to  give  it  the  necessary 
sanction,  falsely  attributed  it  to  Moses.  What  then  must 
have  been  their  surprise  and  confusion,  on  the  appearance 
of  Father  Scheil's  translation  of  Hammurabi's  Code,  to  find 
that  it  was  more  than  five  hundred  years  older  than  that  of 
Moses,  and  that  with  its  two  hundred  and  eighty-two  enact- 
ments it  revealed  a  more  elaborate  social  organization  than 
that  described  in  the  violently  attacked  Book  of  Exodus? 
But  this  is  only  one  of  many  similar  surprises  which  the 
Higher  Critics  have  found  in  the  monuments  of  Babylonia. 
And  in  proportion  as  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  continue 
to  disclose  their  long-withheld  secrets,  so  also,  we  may  feel 
sure,  will  they,  in  all  essential  matters,  be  found  to  verify 
and  corroborate  the  declarations  of  the  Sacred  Text. 

Our  last  bird's-eye  view  of  the  abomination  of  desolation 
that  was  Babylon  was  from  the  highest  accessible  point  of 
the  great  royal  palace  on  the  Kasr.  It  was  at  the  hour 
when  the  noonday  sun  was  pouring  his  irradiating  beams 
on  the  scattered  and  crumbling  ruins  of  temples  and  palaces 
and  citadels,  which  seemed  to  have  been  blasted  by  the 
lightnings  of  a  wrathful  heaven  and  to  be  lying  under  a 
major  anathema  maranatha  of  an  offended  Deity.  In  this 
accursed  haunt  of  serpents  and  scorpions, — and  the  Arabs 
add — dragons  and  satyrs — the  earth  was  absolutely  ver- 
dureless.  No  four-footed  thing  trod  the  earth;  no  winged 
creature  circled  through  the  air;  not  a  tree  or  a  shrub 
adorned  the  brown,  sun-baked  mound.  Where  once  stood 
the  Hanging  Gardens  that  were  the  glory  of  an  arrogant 
potentate  and  the  wonder  of  a  marveling  world;  where 
once  were  gorgeous  halls,  with  throne  of  ivory  and  gold; 
where  kings  and  nobles  feasted  in  bejeweled  robes;  where 
loud  choruses  swelled  to  the  joyous  notes  of  harp  and  cym- 
bal and  psaltery;  where  brazen  bacchanals  drank  to  Bel 
from  golden  goblets  looted  from  Salem's  desecrated  temple, 
there  now  was  the  silence  and  the  vacuity  and  the  oblivion 


BABYLON  507 

of  the  tomb.  Desolation  was  everywhere  made  desolate. 
Of  a  truth  has  Babylon  the  great,  ''the  mother  of  the  abomi- 
nations of  the  earth,"  ''been  thrown  down  and  shall  be 
found  no  more  at  all. ' '  " 

We  stood  on  a  spot  which  must  have  been  near  that  occu- 
pied by  Nebuchadnezzar  when,  in  the  pride  of  his  heart,  he 
exultantly  exclaimed: 

Is  not  this  the  great  Babylon  which  I  have  built  to  be  the 
seat  of  the  kingdom,  by  the  strength  of  my  power  and  in  the 
glory  of  my  excellence? 

And  while  the  word  was  yet  in  the  King's  mouth  a  voice 
came  down  from  heaven :  To  thee,  0  King  Nebuchadnezzar, 
it  is  said :  Thy  kingdom  is  taken  from  thee.^^ 

But  before  this  word  was  uttered  the  Prophet  Jeremias, 
speaking  with  all  the  detail  of  an  eye-witness,  had  foretold 
what  would  be  the  fate  of  the  proud  and  wicked  city  on  the 
Euphrates.  How  literally  true  are  his  predictions,  let  the 
reader  judge  from  the  following  verses : 

Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts :  That  broad  wall  of  Babylon 
shall  be  utterly  broken  down,  and  her  high  gates  shall  be 
burnt  with  fire,  and  the  labors  of  the  people  shall  come  to 
nothing,  and  of  the  nations  shall  go  to  the  fire  and  shall 
perish.**^ 

And  Babylon  shall  be  reduced  to  heaps,  a  dwelling  place 
for  dragons,  an  astonishment  and  a  hissing,  because  there 
is  no  inhabitant." 

Thou  shalt  say:  0  Lord,  thou  has  spoken  against  this 
place  to  destroy  it;  so  that  there  shall  be  neither  man  nor 
beast  to  dwell  therein,  and  that  it  should  be  desolate 
forever.'*^ 

6s  Apocalypse,  xvii:  5;  xviii:  21. 
M  Daniel  iv:  27,  28. 

67  Chap,  li :  58, 

68  Chap,  li :  37. 
68  Chap,  li:  62. 


508  FROM  BERLIN  TO  BAGDAD  AND  BABYLON 

Reading  these  graphic  words  of  the  inspired  prophet  in 
the  presence  of  the  ruins  of  Babylon  as  they  appear  to-day, 
one  can  but  exclaim  with  the  Royal  Psalmist : 

"Forever,  0  Lord,  thy  word  standeth  firm  in  heaven." '° 

«o  Psalm  cxviii :  89. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

PARTIAL  LIST  OF  THE  MORE  IMPORTANT  WORKS 
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INDEX 


"Aaron  the  Just,"  418 

Abbasside  Caliphate,  the,  172 

Abd-el-Kader,  Algerian  ruler,  249 

Abd-er-Rahman  I,  473 

Abdul  Hamid  I,  Sultan,  110,  159 

Abdul  Hamid  II,  Sultan, 50, 110, 268 

Abgar,  King,  285,  296 

Abraham,  Patriarch,  253,  275,  294 

Abydas,  Strait  of,  77 

Abyssinia,  312 

Achilles,  Ashes  of,  36 

Adadinari  IV,  386 

Adana,  commercial  center,  197 

Aegean  Sea,  90 

Afium-Kara-Hissar,  122 

Agamemnon,  "King  of  Men,"  87 

Agostino,  Padre,  263 

Aimee  Dubue  de  Rivery,  110 

Albertus  Magnus,  6 

Alcaeus,  105 

Aleppo,  255,  263 

Alexander  I,  of  Russia,  78 

Alexander  the  Great,  27,  46,  78,  83, 
194,  217,  400 

Alexandria,  289 

Alfold,  great  central  plain  of  Hun- 
gary, 19 

Ali,  first  legitimate  Caliph,  445 

Al-Khader,  260 

Allah,  237 

Al-Mamun,  Caliph,  420 

Al-Mansur,  founder  of  Bagdad,  409 

Ameghino,  Dr.,  453 

America,  does  not  know  or  care 
about  the  truth  about  Tur- 
key, 211 

Ammianus  Marcellinus,  297 

Amru,  316 

Amuita,  Queen,  488 

Anadoli  Kavak,  45 

Anathema  Maran-atha,  327 


«7 


Anatolia,  183 

life  of  the  Osmanlis,  121 
ruins  of,  106 

Anatolian  Railway,  99,  121,  157 

Anazarbas,  199 

Andrae,  Dr.  Walter,  379 

Angel  de  Villarubbia,  Fra,  292 

Anglo-French  press,  hostile  to  Bag- 
dad railway,  166 

Antakia,  255 

Anthimos  VII,  CEcumenical  Patri- 
arch, 336 

"Antioch  the  Beautiful,"  218,  255, 
289 

Antipater,  201 

"Apostle  and  Proto-Martyr  among 
Women,"  172 

"Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,"  St.  Paul, 
202 

Arabian  horses,  441 

Arabians,  life  of  the,  442 

Arab   robbers,   protection   against, 
266 

Aracca,  the  Ereeh  of  Scripture,  461 

Aramaic  language,  272 

Aratus,  201 

Archimedes,  201 

Argonauts,  42 

Argos,  44 

Arianism,  232 

Aristarchus  of  Samothrace,  106 

Aristotle,  83 

Armenian  question,  208 

Armenians,  business  ability  of,  271 
massacre  of  1909,  205 
responsible  in  great  part  for  mas- 
sacres, 207 

Arrians,  101,  305 

Artemidorus,  201 

Ashbelkala,  380 

Ashurnasirpal  III,  380 


518 


INDEX 


Asia  Minor,  183 
great  trouble  of,  149 
rich  in  natural  resources,  184 

Aspasia,  wife  of  Pericles,  104 

Asshur,  city  of,  294 

"Association  Laws,"  292 

Assuerus,  King,  353 

Asur,  builder  of  Nineveh,  345,  379 

Assyrian  Empire,  347 

Astronomy,  foundations  and  prac- 
tice of,  by  Babylonians,  501 

Asurbanipal,  the  Grand  Monarch  of 
Assyria,  353 

"A  Thousand  Nights  and  a  Night," 
261 

Attica,  104 

Attila,  23 

Augustine  of  Hippo,  369 

Augustus,  Emperor,  11 

Aurelian,  Emperor,  217 

Babil,  mound  of,  475,  477 
Babylon,  471-508 

bird's-eye  view  of  desolation  of, 
506 

descriptions  of,  by  ancient  writ- 
ers, 483 

great  wall  of,  483 

hanging  gardens  of,  282,  494 

present  day,  486 

tower  of,  491 
Bagdad,  41,  260,  402-436 

ancient  glories  of,  412 

bazaars  of,  432 

Carmelite  priests  of,  403 

etymological  names  of,  410 

fall  of,  425 

founding  of,  409 

modern,  427 

periodically  visited  by  the  plague, 
431 

population  one-fourth  Jewish,  432 

the  future  of,  435 

the  women  of,  432 
Bagdad  railway,  151 

aim  and  piirpose  of,  168 

completion  of,  held  up  by  World 
War,  370 


Bagdad  railway  (Continued) 

Germany  gets  concession  for,  158 
meeting  of  Czar  and  Kaiser  in 

1910  in  regard  to,  164 
source   of   far-reaching   political 

cataclysm,  169 
splendidly  built,  167 
tunnels  of  the,  255 

Balkan  peninsula,  22 

peoples   of,   hated   one   another, 
more  than  the  Turks,  22 

Barbarossa,  Frederick,  78,  121 

Barmecides,  Slaughter  of  the,  419 

Barnabas,  171 

Basra,  264 

Bayazid  I,  Sultan,  46 

Bazaars  of  Bagdad,  432 

Beaconsfield,  Earl  of,  63 

Beames,  William,  265 

Bedouins,  268 
life  of,  442 

Beirut,  310 

Beith  Allah,  house  of  God,  235 

Belgrade,  19 

Belus,  first  astronomer,  501 

Benjamin  of  Tudela,  414,  480 

Berosus,  priest  of  Bel,  348 

Berlin,  1 

Bessarion,  Cardinal,  335 

Bethsabee,  275 

Bianca  Capello,  110 

Bilejik,  122 

Bir,  281 

Birs-Nimrud,  477 

Black  Forest,  5 

Black   Obelisk   of   Salmanasar  II, 
200 

Black  Sea,  30 

Black  Stone,  worshiped  by  Moham- 
medans, 235 

"Blue  Mosque,"  175 

Bohadin,  417 

Borsippa,  480 

Bosphorus,  161 
plan  for  tunnel  under,  166 
proposed  bridge  over,  166 

Bossuet  of  Meaux,  369 

Botta,  Paul  Emil,  349 


J 


INDEX 


519 


Bourse,  the,  163 

Bozanti  Khan,  188 

Bralia,  31 

Bronze  Horses  of  Lysippus,  68 

Breau,  Quaterfages  de,  456 

Bruin,  Cornelius  de,  358 

Brusa,  94 

Budapest,  18 

Bukcovitz,  Stephen,  114 

Bukharest,  city  of,  29 

Bulgar  Dagh,  the,  189 

Burckhardt,  discovers  black  basaltic 

block,  275 
Burnouf,  Eugene,  362 
Byron,  Lord,  43 
Byzantine  liturgy,  313 
Byzantines,  305 
Byzas,  son  of  Neptune,  67 

Caesaropapism,  326 

Caetani,  Prince,  466 

Caliphs,  triumphs  of  the,  281 

Callicolone,  87 

Calmet,  Dam,  the  Benedictine,  459 

Calycadnus,  the,  191 

Camels,  trains  of,  185 

Canals, 

Danube-Elbe,  34 

Danube-Oder,  34 

Danube-Salonica,  34 

Ludwig,  33 

Suez,  153 
Canon  law  of  Mohammedanism,  244 
Cantacuzenos,   introduces   the    Os- 

manlis  into  Europe,  113 
Capistrau,  St.  John,  20 
Capuchins,  the,  291 
Caravans,  186 

kept  in  communication  with 
friends  by  homing  pigeons, 
267 

protection  against  Arab  robbers, 
266 

trade,  264 
Carchemish,  the,  276,  282 
Carmelite  priests,  of  Bagdad,  403 
Cassandra,  91 
Castle  of  Simeon,  256 


Catherine  de  Medici,  110 
Catherine  II,  of  Russia,  61,  383 
Caulaineourt,  French  Ambassador, 

79 
Cerularius,  Michael,  325 
Chalcedon,  97 
Chaldean  church,  307 
Champollion,  Jean  Frangois,  356 
Chansans    de    Geste,    untruths    in, 

concerning  Mohammedanism, 

222 
Chardin,  Jean,  358 
Charlemagne,  10,  324 
Chateaubriand,  52 
Chesney,  Colonel,  152 
Chilat,  298 

Chosroes  I,  194,  281,  287 
Christianity, 
in  relation  to  Mohammedanism, 

247 
need  of  change  of  attitude  of  the 

West  toward  the  East,  251 
Chrysopolis,  the  golden  city,  96 
Chrysostom,  St.  John,  71 
Churches  of  the  East,  303-340 
Church  of  Holy  Wisdom,  56 
Cicero,  171 
Cilician  Plain,  or  Cilicea  Campes- 

tris,  189 
population  of,  198 
the  Garden  of  Eden,  214 
three  decisive  battles  of  the  world 

fought  on,  194 
Citadel,  at  Aleppo,  273 
"City  of  Delight,"  the,  29 
"City  of  the  Blind,"  the,  97 
"City  of  the  Saints,"  Bagdad,  260 
Cleopatra,  204 

Code  of  Hammurabi,  345,  364,  504 
Coffee,  great  beverage  of  the  Mos- 
lems, 179 
Coffeehouse,  Oriental,  181 
Columbus,  452 

Comnena,  Princess  Anna,  72 
Conquest  of  Constantinople,  328 
Constantino  IX,  Emperor,  325 
Constantine  Paleologus,  68 
Constantine  Porphyrogenitus,  414 


520 


INDEX 


Constantine  the  Great,  68,  321 
Constantinople,  51 

people  of,  65 
Constanza,  37 
Consul  Lirius,  84 
Coptic  church,  312 
Copts,  of  Egypt,  312 
Corinth,  217 
Cos,  105 

Council  of  Florence,  327 
Crassus,  297 
Creation,  one  of  the  oldest  accounts 

of,  discovered,  462 
Crescent  and  the  Cross,  27 
Crimean  War,  99 
Croesus,  King  of  Lydia,  184 
Cross  and  the  Crescent,  27 
Crusaders, 

castles  built  by,  257 

in  Phrygia  and  Lycaonia,  187 

in  the  footsteps  of  the,  171 

route  of  the,  257 
Crusade,  Fourth,  327 

time  has  come  for  a  new  but  dif- 
ferent, 252 
Cunaxa,  battle  of,  375 
Cyaxares,  345 
Cydnus,  203 
Cydnus,  the,  190 
Cyrus,  Bishop,  297 
Cyrus  the  Great,  433 

army  of,  171 
Cyrus  the  Younger,  281 

Dacia,  26 

Dacians,  the,  30 

Damascus,  289,  313 

Damoclean  sword,  331 

Dandolo,  Henricus,  68 

Dante  Alighieri,  247,  295 

Danube,  4,  31 

Darius,  194,  281 

Darius  Hystaspes,  31 

"Dates  of  Akkad,"  472 

Dati,  Leonardo,  457 

David,  King,  275 

Dawson,  J.  W.,  463 

Debora,  nurse  of  Rebecca,  298 


Deggendorf,  8 

De  Lesseps,  and  the  Suez  Canal, 
165 

Delitzsch,  Friedrich,  363,  369,  448 

Delta  of  the  Nile,  317 

Dervishes, 
dancing  or  whirling,  173 
howling,  96 

Deutsche  Orient-Gesellschaft,  387 

Devil's  Wall,  9 

Diana,  Temple  of,  217 

Diering,  Professor,  on  the  Germans, 
168 

Diocletian,  100 

Diodorus  Siculus,  201,  483 

Dionysides,  201 

Dioscur,   Patriarch  of  Alexandria, 
315 

Disraeli,  and  the  Suez  Canal,  153 

Djerabis,  282 

"Doctrine  of  Addai,"  286 

Dominican  Sisters  of  the  Presenta- 
tion of  Tours,  308 

Dominicans  of  Mosul,  307 

Drang  nach  osten,  Trend  toward  the 
East,  155 

Duke  Leopold,  of  Austria,  10 

Dunkelboden,  7 

Earthquakes,  218 

Eastern  Churches,  303-340 

reunion  with  the  Mother  Church, 
334 
Edessa,  284 

legend  connected  with,  284 

school  of,  297 
Egyptian  monophysites,  312 
Eldred,  John,  265,  478 
El  Farruch,  Earth-Divider,  74 
Elgin,  Lord,  57 
Endocia,  Empress,  257 
Enoch,  the  Hermes  Trismegistes  of 

the  Orientals,  284 
Entente  Cordiale,  165 
Ephesus,  103 
Epicureans,  201 
Ermeni  Millet,  318 
Eski  Bagdad,  old  Bagdad,  398 


INDEX 


521 


Eski-Shehr,  122 

Etchimiadzin,  monastery  of,  311 
Eudoeea,  Empress,  71 
Euphrates,  the,  278,  488 
Eusebius  of  Caesarea,  285 
Eutyches,  309 
Eutychianism,  309 
Euxine  Sea,  5,  35 

Father  Damien,  247 
"Father  of  Medicine,"  105 
Fatihah,  first  chapter  of  the  Koran, 

96 
Feringees,  319 
Figueroa,  Don  Garcia  de  Sylva  y, 

357 
Fourth  Crusade,  327 
Fra  Diavolo,  195,  196 
Fragistan-Europe,  319 
France,  as  a  protector  of  Turkey, 

160 
fate   of   the   French   railway   in 

Near  East,  160 
has  always  encouraged  scientific 

research,  349 
not  willing  to  give  recommenda- 
tions    to     Bagdad     railway 

project,  163 
on  friendly  terms  with  Ottoman 

Government,  155 
Franciscan  friars,  262 
Francis  I,  of  France,  155 
Frankish  States,  328 
Fra  Oderic  of  Pordenone,  39 

Galambocz,  24 
Galata,  65 
Galatz,  31 
Garden  of  Eden,  214 

location  of,  447 

motoring  in  the,  437 

one  of  the  oldest  accounts  of  crea- 
tion discovered,  462 
Gargar,  valley  of,  298 
Genghis  Kahn,  113 
Germans,  determined  to  build  Bag- 
dad railway  unaided,  166 


Germany,  dream  of  world  power  in 
the  East,  155 
gets  concession  for  Bagdad  rail- 
way, 158 

Ghazzali,  417 

Girgenti,  ruins  of,  475 

Gisdhubar,  281 

Giurgero,  29 

Gladstone,  William,  64 

Glaser,  E,  465 

Glorietta  of  Schonbrunn,  12 

Godefroy  de  Bouillon,  121 

Golden  Fleece,  44 

Golden  Horn,  47 

Gordianus  III,  297 

Goths,  the,  217 

Gourea,  Antonio  de,  357 

"Granary  of  Northern  Syria,"  278 

Grand  Opera  House,  of  Paris,  55 

"Great    Assassin,"    Abdul    Hamid, 
159 

Great  Britain  and  the  Gold  Coast, 
250 
attitude  toward  Bagdad  railway, 

160 
attitude  toward  Turks,  159 
does  not  wish  to  know  the  truth 

about  Turkey,  211 
fear  of  protectorate  over  Turkey 

by  Teutonic  powers,  162 
not  willing  to  give  recommenda- 
tion to  Bagdad  railway  proj- 
ect, 163 

Great  Cemetery,  96 

Great  Chimu,  497 

"Great  Idea,"  332 

"Great  Schism,"  325 

Great  Sweet  Water,  48 

Great  Wall  of  China,  483 

Greece,  people  of,  in  ancient  days, 
274 

Greeks,  business  ability  of,  271 

Gregorians,  310 

Gregory  of  Nyssa,  369 

Grotefend,  Georg  Friederich,  360 

Hadj,  annual  pilgrimage  to  Mecca, 
244 


522 


INDEX 


Haidar    Pasha,    military    hospital, 
98 

Hainburg,  14 

Halicarnasus,  217 

Halil  Halid,  the  Anatolian,  210 

Hamme,  Frere  Lieven  de,  263 

Hammurabi,  Code  of,  345 

Hanging  gardens  of  Babylon,  282, 
494 

Hannibal,  94 

Haran,  city  of,  293 

Harem,  explanation  of,  and  mean- 
ing, 126-129 

Haremlik,  126 

Harnack,  Professor,  338 

Harpies,  44 

Harum-al-Rashid,  46,  417 

Hazret,  Mevlana,  175 

Hebron,  275 

Hedja  railroad,  267 

Hellespont,  the  Thacian,  77 

Heraclius,  194,  281 

Herbert,  Thomas,  358 

Hergenroether,  Cardinal,  229 

Herodotus,  281,  347,  488 

Hieron,  city  of,  46 

Higden,  Ralph,  the  Benedictine,  449 

Hillah,  village  of,  349,  471 

Hincks,  Edward,  362 

Hipparchus  of  Nicaea,  105,  502 

Hippocrates,  105 

Hippodrome,  in  Constantinople,  58 

Hissarlik,  hill  of,  86 

Hittites,   language   of   undecipher- 
able as  yet,  276 
third   great   empire  with   Egypt 
and  Babylonia,  275 

Hogarth,  David  G.,  on  the  Arme- 
nian question,  208 

Holy  City  of  Jerusalem,  187 

Holy  Directing  Synod,  331 

Homer,  36,  81 

Hommel,  F.,  465 

Howling  Dervishes,  96 

Hudibras,  450 

Huet,  Pierre  Daniel,  460 

Hugo,  Victor,  on  the  Danube,  5 

Hulagu  Khan,  426 


Hunyady  Janos,  20 

Ibrahim,  117 

Iconium,  now  Konia,  122,  151 
Iconoclasts,  doctrine  of,  102 
Ida,  87 

Iliad  and  Odyssey,  81. 
Illock,  20 
Imam,  the,  236 
Iman  Dura,  town  of,  397 
Imperial    Museum    of    Constanti- 
nople, 273 
Independent   Church  of  the  Mon- 
astery of  Mount  Sinai,  331 
Indicopleustes,  450 
International  Commission,  for  regu- 
lation of  traffic,  33 
lo,  priestess  of  Hera  at  Argos,  45 
Ionia,  104 

Irene,  Empress,  102 
Iron  gate,  26 

Irrigation,  of  Babylon,  499 
Isaac,  295 
Ishtar  gate,  494 
Islam,  creed  of,  227 
liberal  policy  of,  116 
not  opposed  to  influence  of  for- 
eign science,  law  or  theology, 
243 
past  and  present,  220 
"the  lay  religion  par  excellence," 
233 
Island  of  Achilles,  36 
Ismid,  100 

Italy,  recent  campaigns  in  Tripoli, 
250 

Jacobites,  309 

Jacob,  Patriarch,  284 

Janissaries,  corps  of,  114 

Jappa,  Gate  of  Jerusalem,  262 

Jason,  44 

Jebel  Hamrin,  389 

Jebel  Makhul,  389 

Jebel  Sinjar,  300 

Jelal-ed-din-Rumi,  tomb  of,  172 

Jenghiz  Khan,  216 

Jerablus,  278 

Jerusalem,  263 


INDEX 


523 


Jinn,  land  of  the,  261 

Joachim  III,  (Ecumenical  Patriarch, 

334 
Joan  of  Arc,  247 

Joseph  II,  Emperor  of  Austria,  61 
Joseph  of  Burgos,  Fra,  292 
Judas  Iscariot,  295 
Julian,  the  Apostate,  10 
Julius  Cffisar,  84 
Justinian,  321 

Kaaba  at  Mecca,  the,  235 
Kadi  Keni,  town  of,  97 
Kaempfer,  Engelreeht,  358 
Kaffa,  city  of,  41 

Kaif,  favorite  pastime  of  the  Mos- 
lems, 138 
Kalah  Sherghat,  mound  of,  378 
Kalat  el  Gebbar,  389 
Kalat  Makhul,  389 
Kapist,  Count,  154 
Katholicos,  head  of  the  Nestorian 

church,  306 
Kelek,  a  trip  down  the  Tigris  on  a, 

370-401 
Kerbela,  sacred  shrine  of,  444 
"Key  of  the  Danube,"  the,  24 
Khabur,  valley  of,  298 
Khanikin,  154 
Khatti,  the,  275 
Kheta,  the,  275 
Knights  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem, 

217 
Kohl,  J.  G.,  17 

Koldewey,  Dr.  Robert,  379,  475 
Konia,  151 

ancient  Iconium,  122 
inhabitants  of,  176 
situation  and  climate  of,  174 
Koran,  96, 116 
contains  many  beautiful  things, 
248 
Kublai  Khan,  40 
Kufah,  466 
Kurdish  race,  208 
Kurdistan,  306 
Kutchuk  Ali  Uglu,  194 
Kuyunjik,  365 


Lane-Poole,  Stanley,  243 
Language  of  Babylonia,  500 
Latin    Empire   in    Constantinople, 

establishment  of,  327 
Latin,    language    of    Hungary   for 

many  years,  16 
Latin  Mellet,  318 
Layard,  Austen  Henry,  350 
Leah,  294 
Lebanon,  313 
Lebanon  Range,  294 
"Legend  of  Abgar,"  285 
Lemnos,  87 

Lenormant,  Frangois,  456 
Leo,  the  Mathematician,  423 
Leo  XIII,  Pope,  334,  338 
Lesbos,  105 

Liberator  of  Bulgaria,  29 
Library  of  Asurbanipal,  354 
Linschoten,    John    Huyghen    Van, 

265 
Little  Sister  of  the  Poor,  248 
Little  Sweet  Water,  48 
Lloyd  George,  David,  64 
Lombard,  Peter,  449 
Loti,  Pierre,  on  the  Turks,  140, 144 
Louis  VII,  of  France,  121 
Lucian,  the  Greek  Voltaire,  346 
Lucullus,  297 
Ludwig  I,  of  Bavaria,  6 
Ludwig  Kanal,  33 
LuUy,  Raymond,  252 

Mahmud  II,  Sultan,  110,  156 

Malabar,  310 

Malik  al-Ashraf,  217 

Mandeville,  Sir  John,  378,  451,  482 

Manzoni,  8 

Marco  Polo,  39,  304,  412 

Marcus  Aurelius,  14 

Mardin,  city  of,  304 

Mare  Magnum  or  Majus,  39 

Margaret  de  Valdemar,  Queen  of 
Norway,  Sweden  and  Den- 
mark, 383 

Maria  Theresa,  Queen,  15 

Marie-Joseph,  Father,  405 

Mark  Anthony,  204 


524 


INDEX 


Marmora,  Sea  of,  77 

Maronites,  313 

Marquise  de  Pompadour,  110 

Marracci,  Padre  Lodovico,  221,  226 

Mar  Shimum,  Lord  Simon,  306 

Mar  Yohannan,  308 

Mausolus,  King  of  Caria,  tomb  of, 

184 
Mayo,  M.,  453 

McGahan,  Januarius  A,  27,  28 
Mecca,  hadj,  or  annual  pilgrimage 

to,  224 
Medak,  or  story-teller,  177 
Medes,  the,  345 
Mehemet  Ali,  189 
Melchites,  310 
Merodach,  temple  of,  490 
Mesopotamia,  283 
Metz,  Gautier  de,  449 
Mevlana,  tomb  of,  172 
Meyer,  Professor  Wilhelm,  361 
Michael  Cerularius,  325 
Michael  Prellos,  326 
Midas,  King  of  Phrygia,  184 
Moawiah,  Saracen,  61 
Mohammed,     accomplishments     of, 
230 
and  his  followers,  224 
creed  of,  227 

erroneous  notions  concerning,  224 
preaches  monotheism,  230 
reformation    of   his    countrymen 
by,  229 
Mohammedanism,  campaign  of  vili- 
fication against,  225 
changeless  in  doctrine,  242 
Christianity  in  relation  to,  247 
has  a  reverence  for  our  Saviour, 

249 
much  to  respect  and  admire  in, 

270 
not  on  the  wane,  240 
"the  lay  religion  par  excellence," 
233 
.  theologians  comment  on,  238 
Mohammed  II,  Sultan,  57,  68,  108, 

311,  321 
Mohammed  V,  Sultan,  125 


Monogamy,  125 
Monophysitism,  309 
Monotheism,  preached  by  Moham- 
med, 230 
Montague,  Lady  Mary  Wortley,  on 

the  Turkish  women,  181 
Mopsuestia,  city  of,  197,  199 
Moslems,    by   law   not   allowed   to 
erect  tombstones,  259 

characteristics  of,  134 

creed  of  the,  227 

forbidden  tobacco,  178 

great  use  of  coffee,  179 

of  a  deeply  religious  nature,  221 

orthodox,    do    not   like   the    der- 
vishes, 173 

piety  and  devotion  of,  124 

prayers,  237 

regard  paintings  and  statues  as 
impious,  175 

women,  their  place  in  thingfs,  129 
Mosques,  the,  234 
Mosul,  298,  299,  303 
Mount  Athas,  community  of,  331 
Mummius,  217 
Murad  II,  Sultan,  108 
Muslin,  derivation  of  the  word,  298 
Mustansiriyah  College,  417 

Nabonnassar,  era  of,  501 

Nabopolassar,  345 

Nahr  Belikh,  293 

Napoleon,  78 

Nazienzus,  St.  Gregory,  71 

Near  East  question,  modified  by 
the  Bagdad  railway,  151 

Nebuchadnezzar  II,  281,  397,  490 

Nehi  Yunus,  365 

Nejef,  sacred  shrine  of,  444 

Nestor,  201 

Nestorianism,  297,  305 

Nestorius,  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople, 305 

Nibelungenlied,  11 

NicEea,  101 

Nicene  Creed,  102 

Nicomedia,  101 

Niebuhr,  Carsten,  349,  358,  480 


INDEX 


525 


Nightingale,  Florence,  98 
Nimrod,  284 
Nimrod's  tower,  478 
Nimroud,  general  aspect  of,  376 

ruins  of,  376 
Nineveh,  341-369 

built  by  Asur,  345 

early  history  of,  345 
"Niobe  of  nations,"  310 
Nippur,  ruins  of,  364 
Nisibis,  289,  296 
Nitocris,  Queen,  488 
Nizamiyah  College,  417 
Noachian  deluge,  351 
Nod,  land  of,  462 
Novatians,  305 
Norris,  Edwin,  362 

"Oak  of  Weeping,"  298 

Obbanes,  281 

(Ecumenical  councils,  102 

(Ecumenical  Patriarchs,  330 

Olympus,  90 

Omar  Khayyam,  417 

Opis,  400 

Oppert,  head  of  French  expedition 

to  Mesopotamia,  482 
Orientalium    Dignitas    Ecclesiarum 

of  Pope  Leo  XIII,  340 
Orkhan,  second  ruler  of  the  Osman- 

lis,  95 
son  of  Osman,  107 
Orthodox  churches,  320 
Osman,    founder    of    the    Osmanli 

dynasty,  107 
Osmanlis,  characteristics  of,  133 
great  sin,  one  of  omission  rather 

than  commission,  219 
plea  for  more  tolerance  to,  150 
Oshoene,  kingdom  of,  284 
Ottoman  women,  49 

Paestum,  ruins  of,  475 

Pagans,  304 

Palace  of  the  Star,  49 

Paleologus,  Theodore,  114 

Palgrave,  on  Mohammedanism,  241 


Palmyra,  217 

Pan-Islamism,  a  force  which  Chris- 
tianity must  reckon  with,  243 
greater    missionary    force    than 

ever,  244 
the  strengthening  of,  268 
Parthenon,  57 
Parthian  Kings,  491 
Parthians,  297 
Passau,  7 
Patriarch  of  Alexandria,  head  of 

the  Copts,  312 
Patriarchus    Antiochenus    Maroni- 

tarum,  314 
Paulinists,  305 
Paul-Simon,  Father,  403 
Perez,  Father,  403 
Pergamus,  kingdom  of,  185 
Peripatetics,  201 
Persepolis,  356 
Persian  Gulf,  466 
Persian  Kings  of  the  Achsmeuian 

dynasty,  356 
Persian  satraps,  310 
Persian  shiites,  445 
Persians,  school  of  the,  290 
Pescennius  Niger,  194 
Peter  the  Great,  331 
"Peuteringian  Table,"  298 
Peter  the  Venerable,  Abbot  of 

Cluny,  232,  252 
Petervarad,  20 
Phanar,  the  Vatican  of  the  Orthot 

dox  church,  330 
Philetism,  love  of  one's  race,  330 
Photius,  71,  323 
Phrygian  language,  171 
Pietro  della  Valle,  263 
Pillars  of  Hercules,  325 
Pinches,  T.  F.,  462 
Plague,  in  Bagdad,  431 
Platonists,  201 
"Plato  the  Divine,"  172 
Pliny  the  Younger,  94 
Polygamy,  125 
Pontus  Axentis,  39 
Pool  of  Abraham,  291 
Porter,  Robert  Ker,  480 


526 


INDEX 


Potsdam,   meeting  at,   in   1910  of 

Czar  and  Kaiser,  164 
Poverello  of  Assisi,  142 
Pozsony,  18 
Prceclara,  335 

Prayer,  of  the  Moslems,  237 
Priam,  city  of,  88 
Primate  of  the  Melchites,  313 
Princes  Islands,  99 
Prophet  Daniel,  375 
Prophet  Jonas,  mound  of,  352 
Prophet  Zephaniah,  345 
Psametik,  King  of  Egypt,  171 
Pyl<B  Cilicioe,  or  Cilician  Gates,  188 
Pylcs-Tauri,  gate  of  Taurus,  189 

"Queen  of  the  East,"  194     . 

Eachel,  294 

Railway,    construction    of,    across 

Mesopotamia,  152 
Rameses    II,    the    greatest    of    the 

Pharaohs,  274 
Ramsay,  Lady,  129 
Ramsay,  Sir  W.  M.,  129 
Raphael's  Madonna  of  San  Sisto,  3 
Rashid  ud  Din,  413 
Rassam,  Ormuzd,  351 
Ratisbon,  city  of,  3 
Rawlinson,  Sir  Henry,  361,  411 
Rebecca,  294 

Reign  of  Terror  in  Prance,  212 
Rhazes,  Mussulman  physician,  416 
Ehenus  Superhus,  8 
Rhine,  river,  11 
Richard  Cceur  de  Lion,  10 
Rich,  Claudius  James,  349,  480 
Ricouard,  Marie,  404 
Rio  de  Janiero,  66 
"Rite  of  Malabar,"  314 
Robinson,  Reverend  Paschal,  141 
Roman  Empire,  324 
Roma  Nova,  60 
Romans,  road  builders  of  antiquity, 

254 
Roumania,  26 
Roxalana,  the  Muscovite,  109 


Royal  Art  Gallery  of  Dresden,  3 

"Royal  Road,"  121,  253 

Bum  Millet,  318 

Russia,  attitude  toward  the  Bagdad 
railway,  160 
campaigns  in  the  Transcaucasia, 

250 
waives  all  share  in  Bagdad  rail- 
way, 164 

Russian  Nihilist,  Armenian  revolu- 
tionists inspired  by,  206 

Russians,  28 

Safia,  the  Venetian,  110 

St.  Athanasius  of  Alexandria,  335 

St.  Augustine,  228 

St.  Basil's  liturgy,  340 

St.  Bernard,  299 

St.  Cyril,  Patriarch  of  Alexandria, 

315 
St.  Dominic,  Sons  of,  341 
St.  Ephrem,  290 
St.  Francis,  Sons  of,  142 
St.  George  and  the  dragon,  24 
St.  Gregory  Mazienzen,  333 
St.  Gregory  the  Illuminator,  310 
St.  Jerome,  232, 299 
St.  John  of  Chrysostom,  333 
St.  John  of  Damascus,  231 
St.  John  of  Jerusalem,  Knights  of, 

217 
St.  Mary  of  Kanobin,  314 
St.  Paul,  171, 189 

life  and  career  of,  202-205 
St.  Peter  of  Alcantara,  406 
St.  Prosper  of  Aquitaine,  216 
St.  Simeon  Stylites,  257 
St.  Stephen,  cathedral  of,  12 
St.  Thecla,  172 

St.  Theodore  of  Studium,  339 
St.  Theresa,  247 
St.  Thomas,  church  of,  in  Malabar, 

314 
St.  Vincent  de  Paul,  247 
Sainte-Therese,  Father  Bernard  de, 

404 
Saladin,  Sultan,  223 
birthplace  of,  393 


i 


INDEX 


627 


Salmanassax  I,  376 

Salmanassar  II,  black    obelisk   of, 
200 

Salmanassar  III,  386 

Sammuramat,  or  Semiramis,  381 

Samothrace,  87 

San  Marco,  Cathedral  of,  58 

San  Stephano,  treaty  of,  63 

Santa  Sophia,  church  of;  53 

Sapor  I,  297 

Sappho,  105 

Saracens,  317 

Sardanapalus,  203 

Sargan  II,  386 

Sarzec,  M.  Ernest  de,  363 

Satyrs,  476 

Saulcy,  M.  de,  362 

Schneider,  Siegmund,  German  engi- 
neer, 166 

Seholarios,  George,  328 

School  of  Edessa,  297 

"School  of  the  Persians,"  290 

Sehrader,  Eberhard,  363 

Second  Council  of  Lyons  in  1274, 
327 

See  of  Constantinople,  325 

Selamlik,  127 

Seleucia,  city  of,  491 

Seleucia-Ctesiphon,  305 

Seleucids,  the,  316 

Seleucus  Nicator,  491 

Seleucus,  the  Chaldean  astronomer, 
503 

Selim  I,  Sultan,  108,  117 

Seljuk  Sultans  of  Rum,  172 

Semiramis,  381 
family  and  connections  of,  386 

"Semiramis    of    the    North,"    the, 
61 

Sennacherib,  375 

Septimus  Severus,  14, 194,  297 

Serbians,  against  the  Turks,  148 

Serpent  Column  from  Delphi,  59 

Seven  Sleepers,  legend  of  the,  197 

Shamsi-Adad  V,  380 

Simeon,  castle  of,  256 

"Siren  of  the  Nile,"  205 

Sister  of  Charity,  247 


Sisters  of  St.  Francis  from  Lons. 

292 
Skobeleff,  General,  28 
Smith,  George,  351 
Sobieski,  John,  13 
Solyman  the  Magnificent,  108 
Solyman  Pasha,  78 
Sons  of  St.  Dominic,  303 
Sons  of  St.  Francis,  142 
Sanusiyahs,  the,  246 
Stamboul,  48 
Stanley,  Dean,  337 
Stoics,  201 

Stone  of  Nebi  Yunus,  352 
Strabo,  201 
Suez  Canal,  153 
Sunnites,  the,  445 
Syrians,  the,  272 
Syrian  Uniates,  310 

Tabriz,  city  of,  41 
Tallyrand,  34 
Tarsus,  190,  202 
once  the  center  of  Greek  thought 

and  knowledge,  201 
Tartars,  306 
Taurus  Mountains,  183 
Tekrit,  392 
Telloh,  city  of,  364 
Temple  of  Fame,  6 
Tenedos,  87 

Ten  Thousand  Greeks,  the,  171 
Terrestrial  Paradise,  dispute  as  to, 

447 
"Testament  of  Leo  XII,"  335 
Teufelsmauer,  Devil's  Wall,  9 
Teutonic  Powers,  162 
Thadd^e,  Father,  403 
Thapsaeus,  281 
Thare,  294 

"The  Great  River"  of  the  Jews,  282 
Theodora,  daughter  of  Cautacuze- 

nos,  114 
Theodora,  Empress,  102 
Theodosius  II,  Emperor,  257 
"The  Round  City,"  411 
"The  Terrible  Turk,"  148 
Tb^venot,  Jean  de,  391 


528 


INDEX 


"Thirty  pieces  of  silver,"  295 

Thracian  Hellespont,  77 

Tiglath-Pileser  I,  King  of  Assyria, 
293, 386 

Tigris,  the,  278 

Timok  River,  27 

Timur,  113, 216 

Tobacco,  use  of,  forbidden  by  Mos- 
lems, 178 

Tomi,  37 

Tonietti,  Sig.  A.,  154 

Tower  of  Babel,  mound  of  Babil 
not  the,  479 

Trade  routes  of  the  Near  East,  253 

Trajan,  Emperor,  298 

Trampe,  Herr,  168 

Treaty  of  San  Stephano,  63 

Trojan  War,  319 

Troubadours,  the,  222 

Troy,  glory  of,  immortal,  93 
plain  of,  88 

"Turk,"  applied  by  Osmanlis  when 
referring  to  a  brutal  man,  112 

Turks,  propaganda  against,  123 
treatment  of  the  women,  131 

Turkey,  Great  Powers  cannot,  with- 
out trouble,  treat,  as  pariah 
nation,  213 

Tyre,  city  of,  217 

Uniate  Copts,  313 

Uniates,  308 

Urban  VIII,  Pope,  404 

Urf  a,  284 

"Uriah  the  Hittite,"  275 

Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  294 

Vale  of  Bozanti,  188 
Valle,  Pietro  della,  357,  478 
Vasco  da  Gama,  73,  264 
Venice,  58 


Via  Sacra,  of  Babylon,  497 

Vienna,  13 

Villamil,  Emeterio,  453 

Violet,  M.  H.,  399 

Vladimir,  King  of  Russia,  339 

Volga  River,  32 

Voltaire,  269 

on  the  Koran,  225 
von  Bieberstein,  Baron  Marschall,  158 
von  Hammer-Purgstall,  304 
von  Moltke,  156 

von  Pressel,  Wilhelm,  German  engi- 
neer, 166 
von  Siemens,  Dr.  George,  156 

Wahabis,  the,  179 
Wallaehians,  114 
Whirling  dervishes,  173 
"White  City"  of  Serbia,  21 
Whitman,  Sidney,  on  the  Turks,  147 
Wiseman  of  Westminster,  369 
Wo  Lag  das  Paradies,  466 
Wolf    of    the    Capitol    in    Rome, 

bronze,  59 
Worship,   freedom  of,   allowed   by 

the  Turks,  145 

Xenoerates,  97 
Xenophon,  46, 189,  281 
Xerxes,  59,  77,  83 

Yashmak,    veil    worn    by    Moslem 
women,  128 

Zab,  the,  388 

Zenobia,  "Queen  of  the  East,"  194 

Zeno,  Emperor,  201,  297 

Zeus,  45, 91 

Zikr  ul  Aawaze,  376 

Zobeide,  tomb  of,  440 

Zoroaster,  religion  of,  256 


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